


One Bullet Away

by Kat2107



Series: Dreamspinners [1]
Category: Inception (2010), The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Angst, Casual Racism, Drug Use, Expect gunfights, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Torture, Killer Tomato Shorts, M/M, Medicinal Drug Use, Mental Health Issues, Mentions of Racism, Minor Character Death, PTSD, Please heed the special chapter warnings, Severe Abuse of American Geography, The Inception AU nobody needs, and three letter agencies, tragic backstory galore, unsafe sexual practices
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-24
Updated: 2017-05-06
Packaged: 2018-08-24 10:48:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 79,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8369377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kat2107/pseuds/Kat2107
Summary: Sam Chisolm had been out, as out as someone could ever be in the dreamshare business, until a young woman showed up and she had a job. She had the job.They couldn't trust the officials, they couldn't trust the law. In this, they had to become the law.Getting old friends, trusted allies and the occasional criminal to form a functioning team in time to bring down Bartholomew Bogue... what could possibly go wrong?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Someone wanted an Inception Mag7 AU. Since I don't have enough on my plate yet with the monstrosity that is These Three Remain and I desperately needed another long fic... Welp, here it is. 
> 
> Now, a word of warning and a request for patience:  
> One reason why we all love the movie so much is its diversity. I will be frank with you, I am neither Mexican, nor am I Native American, I am not Korean or African American. Heck I am not even American and English is not my first language. I am a writer, I dunk my brain into different situations and try to make sense of them.  
> Should you notice me falling into bad tropes, harmful stereotypes or plainly writing dog poop about any of the characters, nationalities, background, please feel free to just kick my butt over it and make me do it better. Gently, if you feel generous. If not, I'm a big girl, with a big butt. Don't worry.
> 
> Before we begin, a heartfelt thanks to Eridani, who is a terrific friend, a wonderful Beta and who just puts up with my perfectionist bullshit far beyond the point even _I_ put up with my perfectionist bullshit.  
>  Je t'aime, mon amie!

“Agent Cullen... “ The man behind the desk pulled the glasses off his face and dropped them to the table. “Emma…” Without them, he no longer looked like a carbon copy of any other head of department in the CIA. With his gelled back hair highlighting the sharp cuts of his youthful face he looked younger than her, except maybe for the fine crow’s feet that spread around his eyes and the weariness in them, testament of things seen. More than most believed possible. But there was a reason, he headed the CIA’s Dreamshare program while still in his thirties.

“Sir, I need to!” She took one step forward, only to be halted by his raised hand. He didn’t look at her, too busy rubbing his eyes.

“It will not bring Matt back. We have no way of pinning it on Bogue. All we have is the case of his tax evasion and even there, we got incredibly lucky.”

“Sir, what if it were E…” Emma snapped her mouth shut without finishing the sentence and completing an unforgivable mistake.

Her boss’es eyes snapped up and something dangerous blazed to life within the soft brown. “Who, Agent Cullen?”

“Nevermind, sir. Just please, give me a chance.”

He pushed away from the table and stood. A brisk movement closed his jacket, bespoke of course, over a black shirt and matching vest, but not even that could smooth out the wrinkles that marred the normally so perfect appearance over where his holster sat. On normal days, he wouldn’t be caught dead in the same jacket two days in a row. But nothing had been normal in weeks.

None of them had slept much since Bogue had gotten their team and Emma wondered if their boss had seen his bed or his partner at all. But when had that ever stopped him? The man was a legend, for his work within the law as much as his career in the “freelance world”.

“If you wanna do it,” he set out and walked over to the single window. “If you wanna risk it. If you wanna risk being cut loose from this agency, your job, your life and your good name…” Now, he finally lifted his gaze and found her eyes mirrored in the glass, the corners of his mouth kicking up into a boyish smile, “I suggest you talk to a man named Sam Chisolm in New York. And Emma… the right kind of evidence cannot be bribed away, not even by Bogue.”

“Sam Chisolm? Isn’t he retired?”

“A sabbatical. For research. Men like Chisolm don’t retire.”

“I will talk to him, sir.” She responded with a smile sharp enough to split hairs on.

“I’m not finished… if you do not manage to extract anything pertaining his criminal activities… I’m not saying anything here but talk to Sam Chisolm. And trust him.”

“Understood, sir.”

His eyes lingered before he nodded and shooed her out of his office, already reaching for his phone to take the next call.

Giddy was not the word to describe her as she marched to her desk to collect Teddy. Giddy implied joy.

Joy had been her husband, joy had been Matt’s unquenchable thirst for life. His curiosity and his drive for justice. To wake up next to him on the rare Sunday morning they’d had for themselves.

Joy had been the shared pride of their work.

No Giddy was not what she was feeling. But the low vibrations in the war drum rhythm of her heartbeat was just enough.

 

***

 

“I am still baffled as to how you do it.” Sam Chisolm, Senior law enforcement officer and scientific consultant with the Federal Bureau of Investigation opened the door for the young man by his side, very aware of the twinkle in the boy’s dark eyes. “I do not like to be baffled.”

Red twisted his way through the door with the agility that was very much his own and laughed.

“That is because you look at it with the wrong eyes. You see it with the eyes of a man who is at home here…” his hand described a motion that included the gleaming steel and glass around them, encompassed the soaring buildings around them and the people filled streets outside. “You vanish as a man among people, but where I come from, there are not that many people. Besides, for a man who knows better, you have a surprisingly strong belief in the impossible, Mr. Chisolm.”

Sam Chisolm stopped dead in his tracks and narrowed his eyes, though the smile was not far behind.

He had been working with Red Harvest for close to two months now, ever since the military had discovered their dreamshare operative’s unique talent, and still he hadn’t even come close to unlocking his ability. Weirdly, it didn’t matter. Red Harvest had yet to show any sign of impatience and for Chisolm, the thrill of this particular hunt was the only thrill that mattered anymore. Which was why he had basically bought the kid out of his unit and offered him not only a place to study psychology but also a job as his student assistant. And with a bit of maneuvering that had gone over without a hitch. Even the army knew that this kid was too independent for their lot.

“The paradox…”

“No paradox.” Red Harvest grinned.

“There always is a paradox. You cannot just make yourself invisible. That is not how the brain works”

They walked along the corridor, both afflicted with the heavy gait of men who had learned to make their steps count with heavy bags on their backs and guns in their hands. Not that anybody was around to notice. The lecture halls of the psychology building were empty this time of night and nobody cared for the night owls and the weird business they conducted under the guise of secrecy.

“No, you believe that there will be a paradox. That is why you bring the paradox. But nobody told me that.” Red Harvest gestured with reaching movements, the passion of his voice translating directly into the story his hands told. “That is why… “ He reached up and rubbed his right hand over his buzz cut, grown far out of regulation length, though he kept the sides meticulously shaved. It said something about him as a man and his ability to stray from beaten paths, even those who’d been beaten into him. “If I don’t bring the paradox and the brain doesn’t notice me because I am invisible, there is no paradox.”

They had led this discussion numerous times before, always circling around the fact that Chisolm didn’t understand. Maybe that night Red would have had something to add that shed a new light on it, but they would never know, their talk interrupted by a third voice.

“Mr. Chisolm?”

Red reacted that half-second faster that came with the tension of youth. It was pure luck he had no weapon on him. Chisolm cursed as he stepped in front of Red Harvest.

“I don’t think you should be here, ma’am. The building locks at 10.” Her jacket was standard middle-class New York fare. The bulge from a shoulder holster was not. Neither was the young man slinking in the shadows behind her.

“I need to talk to you. I have a job proposition.” And the way she made it sound was one that Sam Chisolm hadn’t heard in quite a while.

“I am not for sale, ma’am. I am an employee of the United States government and also a measly university researcher…”

“Sir, please just listen!” If desperation cracked her tough shell, the flint-hard resolve in her eyes never wavered. Breaking this woman would be hard work should anyone ever try. “My name is Emma Cullen. I work for the… I work for the CIA. Dreamshare division. My team…” On this, her voice wavered and Red Harvest shifted to stand next to Chisolm, ready to reach out and support her as if she hadn’t just admitted working for the Agency. He glanced over to stop the younger man, but already her companion had stepped forward from the shadows and brushed her arm in a familiar gesture of friendship.

“My husband was our division’s extractor. He and the rest of the team went after an associate of Bartholomew Bogue, trying to get more evidence on an international kidnapping charge that might have implicated Bogue, too. I was not with them. Corrective surgery for an old injury.” Her face twisted into an apologetic grimace. “Instead, we sent a young department architect who is... was…” Emma Cullen gulped in a deep breath and closed her eyes, gathering what considerable control she had. “Bogue had them murdered. It was a trap. He went after them when they were under and tortured them to death. Afterward, he dumped their bodies in a landfill.” A sound, akin to a wounded deer lodged somewhere deep in her throat, grief freshly edged into every line of her face, yet she stood with her shoulders squared and her jaw set.

And wasn’t that an all too familiar feeling for anyone who had ever stood opposite Bartholomew Bogue…

“So, you seek revenge…”

“I seek righteousness.” Raw pain laced each word as she locked her eyes on Sam, tears hanging gathering like accusations in her lashes. They wouldn’t fall.  “As should we all.” She didn’t attempt to smile again, just comfortably settled into cold burning rage. “But I’ll take revenge.”

“Is this official?”

“If we come up with evidence, yes. Whatever we do off the clock... “

Next to Chisolm, Red Harvest tilted his head and stirred with something akin uncharacteristic impatience.

“Bartholomew Bogue is a real estate mogul, investor, land shark and all around swell guy who makes the mafia look like the boy scouts,” Chisolm repeated the elevator pitch every FBI man in the US had on the man for Red. “He buys up land, whole towns and he doesn’t give a damn who lives there. Then he brings in businesses. Except these businesses often enough front for weapons trade, he is suspected of human trafficking, kidnapping, blackmail and I bet our friends from the Agency could add plenty to the list.” His bitter grin went unanswered. Emma looked away. “See, Red, Nobody ever goes after him, because he is a respectable businessman with a lot of powerful friends, his money is plenty and the people whose lives he destroyed, they’re normally too poor to be really heard…”

“I heard of him.” Red looked at Emma Cullen. “He did a few deals on reservations, too.”

“But isn’t that...illegal? I mean, aren’t there protections?” Mrs. Cullen’s companion stepped forward, armed with the conviction of being right and the stupidity of the young and coddled. He stepped right back when Red’s gaze hit him.

“Yeah, so?” The Comanche spoke with the weight of decades, if not centuries, of disillusion and only Mrs. Cullen’s sharply cleared throat spared her companion true embarrassment.

“Are you in, Mr. Chisolm?”

Chisolm exchanged a glance with his assistant.

“I will think on it, Agent Cullen. Good night.”

 

***

 

“Sam!” The voice on the other side of the call bristled with honest warmth and not a small amount of mischief. “How’s work coming along with your new Forger? Have you cracked his secret yet?”

“Arthur…,” Sam said and couldn’t help the smile.

Here, in the safety of his reinforced basement walls, with the boards covered with calculations, notes, and newspaper cutouts, he shucked his lecturer personality and just became, who he was. “My Forger is well. He is upstairs cooking dinner, while I am in the bunker, calling up file after file of people I could rope into an extremely dangerous and semi-legal operation on behalf of the CIA. Why am I sitting in my basement trying to put together a team, Arthur?”

“Because you want Bogue. This is the chance you have been waiting for what? 25 years?”

Automatically Chisolm’s hand brushed over the scar that ringed his neck.

“Who betrayed your team, Arthur?” He needed at least a direction where to look or this op would end just like Emma’s and the one he had lost Goody to, too many good men dead and others too damaged to ever truly live again.

On the other end, the silence stretched a little longer than he was comfortable with.

“Inhouse,” finally came the reply and Sam cursed. “My Department is still following the trail. We penned an official version that points in a different direction while my people fine comb everything.”

His people… Sam grinned. ‘My people’ in Arthur’s book consisted of a handful of men and women he trusted enough to maybe even rob the bank of England with. Mostly his partner in crime and master forger who practically begged to get access to Red Harvest ‘just to get a feel for what he does’

“Almost like old times, hm?”

“Be careful, Sam. If he got into the agency, he’ll have his fingers in the Bureau as well.”

A good chunk of files blinked out as Chisolm’s fingers flew over the keyboard.

“The best usually are not in government employ. That leaves me with a few options.”

Something thudded as Arthur kicked his feet up onto his desk in a habit he had picked up from his much less sophisticated partner. “Want to run them past me?”

“Better,” Sam laughed. “I need you to help me find some of them. You still are the only one good enough to turn up Vasquez and last I heard, he went deep after that clusterfuck with his team.”

“Horne?”

“Yes. Have you read his latest paper?” Sam clicked his way through a few more files until his left screen was filled with five faces, mugshots, Service IDs, an Interpol warrant and he smiled at the clacking of a keyboard through the phone line.

 

***

 

He emerged to the smell of grilled meat upstairs and found his assistant bowed deep over a book at the kitchen table, the news on mute on the tv.

“I should probably ask you, too, and not just assume, you’ll join us.”

Red Harvest looked up and gently closed the book, his big hands resting on the cover as he smiled at Chisolm.

“This might get bloody, Red. Inside and outside of the dreams.”

Red’s smile only deepened as he shook his head and stood to get the food. “Afghanistan was bloody, Chisolm. The dreams the army put me through were. This?” He dumped a pan with mashed potatoes and steak on the table, two plates, and cutlery and gestured for his mentor to sit. “This just feels right.”

Sam watched him, took in his broad shoulders, the poetry book forgotten on the table and shook his head.

“Wait till I send you on your first errand.”

“Who am I fetching?” Beneath the brilliance and his talent, Red Harvest was still first and foremost a soldier, no matter how much he might have hated it.

“Guy’s name is Faraday. A brilliant Forger. Last I heard, he made the rounds in the Casinos in Lawton, Oklahoma…”

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am posting this from my cell phone frome the ass end of Germany. Errors might occur. I apologize. Will fix them on Sunday.  
> Happy reading.
> 
> Special thanks to Susan for providing the fact check and background reading on Red Harvest

A cheap sign blinked in garish yellow and red into the night, the warm air dry and just a little dusty. It couldn’t compare to Afghanistan, though that still felt closer to Oklahoma than New York ever could. Red Harvest waited for a note of homesickness, the fine pang that he never managed to quite lose, no matter how far away he got and wanted to get.

When it came, a gentle tug in his chest, dismissible among the stench of cold smoke and white sweat and despair, among the dozen conflicting sources of electronic music, he took a deep breath and moved.

This was Lawton, Oklahoma and even if he wanted to reminisce, he was on a job and a schedule.

Luck favored him as he turned the corner towards the back entrance and the garbage bins.

She was pretty, late teens maybe, her hair wrapped in long shining braids that fell over her shoulders.

Inwardly he berated her for the glow of the cigarette in her hand, impossible to miss outside the door lamp’s circle. But this was not the army anymore and this pretty young woman could smoke wherever she damn well pleased if it gave her a moment to breathe.

“’scuse me?”

She turned with a startled sound and tripped over her feet in the movement. He knew he stood uncomfortably close, close enough to grab her arm and steady her with his most innocent smile.

“Sorry, I didn’t want to…”

She was out of his reach in the blink of an eye, anger drawing her eyes tight.

Red Harvest raised both hands and stepped back, hunching his shoulders forward. His eyes dropped. “Sorry, I didn’t wanna startled you. I’m just looking for a public toilet.”

At once her shoulders sacked down. She even smiled as she shook her head and looked him over, this time with more appreciation than fear in her eyes. “Not here, sorry. Inside is for customers only.”

“Ok, alright, then.” Taking another step back he smiled. “Guess I’ll have to get a coffee or something. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” The girl's eyes lingered on his back as Red Harvest retreated around the corner. He was an asshole.

 

***

 

The soft snick of the security door locked out the noise, the stale stench of cold sweat and smoke, the sickening miasma of despair and greed that no amount of run down red velvet carpets could dampen. Blessed silence, blessed chemical odor of a running AC.

Red Harvest allowed himself a moment to rest his back against the cool metal and take in his surrounding; nothing but the slow sound of his deep breaths.

The hallway in front of him was the exact opposite to what lay behind: bare, honest, ugly concrete, radiating cool to the still sweltering heat outside.

Doors lined the narrow passage. Employee toilet, break room.

Security.

 

“Hello, Shane.” No matter how dim the light inside the security office, Red Harvest would have recognized that set of shoulders anywhere in the world, in any set of circumstances. Slimmer than his own, with hair much longer falling down the back and a nose in profile, that looked as if it had met a few violently thrown doors in its lifetime. One of those violently thrown doors had been Harvest’s cheekbone, more than ten years ago. Another had been a free addition to a concussion in Afghanistan, four years ago. Red Harvest had carried him out of the danger zone then.

But he seemed to have racked up at least one more fracture since then, recently even.

Very, or Harvest would have known about it.

Now as the man in front of the feeds jumped up and reached for his gun, Harvest forced himself to stillness, forced himself to wait out the inevitable. He wouldn’t shoot.

Shane’s hand dropped away after the tense second his brain needed to filter the unexpected.

“Am I tripping?”

With a twang of guilt, Red Harvest looked away, before he shook his head and stepped forward, the stolen keycard in his outstretched hand. Shane took one look at it and with an impatient sound grabbed Harvest’s shoulders to pull him into a hug that seemed, for a moment, to encompass everything. A long history, together and apart, gladness, resentment and most of all: relief.

“Where the hell have you been? Last thing Tommy knows is, you left the army and vanished.”

He smelled of baby powder and Red Harvest took another deep breath, followed by a smile.

“New job. Moved. Big city life. It got damn busy.”

The moment Harvest dropped his arms, Shane released him, freed him to bring safe distance between them once more. It had always been a little like that. Shane - and his brother - reaching out and Red Harvest moving to safe distance, but never too far away. Something, a wild kind of curiosity, always drove him on, severed any ties he might have before they could become too rigid, too tight. Roots.

A psychologist might have a thing or two to say about that. Would have, with honest answers. But who really answered honestly with army psychologists.

Red stepped back and once more held the keycard out. “Thought of you, though. Lots.”

 _You are in my dreams,_ sounded more than just a little creepy to say, so he didn’t.

All his words and his consideration got him was a sad look and a gentle huff.

“New job? Breaking into my Casino?” Shane snatched the keycard and took a glance at the name while Red walked past him, towards the feeds. He didn’t expect to be stopped and he wasn’t.

Sometimes he wondered if Chisolm was really this good, or if he just had an insane amount of luck.

“Nah,” he quipped. “Research division with the FBI. New York. Start studying psychology next semester.”

Behind him, silence reigned. It settled heavy over the room, broken not even by the cloth on cloth whisper of movement.

Before him, the masses died a slow death in the thrall of a promise for something better that would never come.

“Come again?” Finally, Shane took a step closer, another.

Harvest passed only a cursory glance over the slot machines, the dead-eyed zombies pushing buttons, pressing coins, pushing buttons, long tails of ash hanging off their cigarettes, forgotten in the face of the only thing that mattered anymore. Pushing buttons.

‘The red man’s revenge’ his Sergeant had called the casinos. Red Harvest had kept his mouth shut.

“Research. FBI. Psychology.”

He found what he was looking for the moment Shane’s hand carefully touched his shoulder, his steps louder than they needed to be, it was a habit they both had picked up in the army.

“In _New York._ That something to do with any classified projects in the army maybe?”

“Maybe?” Red Harvest smirked. “Tell your brother he’s a tattletale.”

“You always were different, R.H., but that takes the cake.” They stood shoulder to shoulder, watching the feed as if that was what they had been meant to be doing. That had fallen through years ago, though. As Shane very well knew. “I guess you’re not coming home then…”

“Which home,” Red Harvest scoffed and looked at his friend with a shake of his head. “Maybe when I can buy back the ranch. But I have no family here. Not like you.”

He noticed his mistake the moment the words left his mouth and the hurt flashed in his friend’s eyes. Shane and his brother had been the only ones to keep contact after Red had fallen into the foster system, after their grandparents’ death and they had stuck with him from afar the whole time. They had joined the army together and some nights, Red Harvest didn’t quite know if they hadn’t only done it to keep him from being alone.

Shane had returned home the first opportunity. He had his parent’s ranch, a family. Tommy was on his way to make a living giving orders and shooting people. And Red…

“Sorry,” he breathed and curled his fingers around Shane’s wrist. “Habit. It was easier that way.”

Shane raised an eyebrow and Red looked away.

“Next time call,” Shane said and glanced at the keycard again. “Instead of getting a 20-year-old community college student into trouble.” The gentle slap up Red’s head was the only sign he had been forgiven. For now.

“Punishing her for running into me is like punishing you for not noticing my target brought a gun."

"What?" In an instant, the companionable atmosphere dissipated.

Shane wheeled around and planted both hands onto the console, his nose so close to where Harvest was tapping against the screen that he seemed to try and crawl into the feed. The bulge at the small of Faraday's back was subtle, smoothed over by his ill-fitting jacket, and Red Harvest wouldn't have noticed if he hadn’t memorized Faraday’s file, training, preferred weapons and everything.

"He's also fleecing you," Harvest added helpfully and used the moment to slip a few folded banknotes into Shane’s pocket.

"Yeeees." Shane sat with his head tilted and now he had eyes on Faraday, his professional instincts blazed to life. "He's damn good."

Red Harvest leaned against the console and folded his arms across his chest.

“You wanna do something about it?”

Shane watched the ginger-haired man fold another card into his sleeve with a quick flick of his wrist and grinned.

“What do you have in mind?”

 

***

 

Joshua Faraday, age 32, former Marine. Three combat tours, weapons expert, explosives training, extremely good shot. Several conduct violations, but none so severe that they got him into real trouble. Not until Faraday had wanted out.

Faraday had started as a grunt and steadily worked his way up until someone had looked past his psych profile and noticed his IQ. Then he’d been one of the first men to be drafted into the second generation dreamshare program.

It had taken him a year to get kicked out.

Reading over the file, Red Harvest couldn’t help but laugh. “Intentionally.”

Chisolm had taken one look and concurred. “He’s a gambler… He played them and he won.”

“But what did it get him?”

“Skills, better pay on the free market, nothing? Sometimes, it’s not about the winnings, it’s about the game.”

 

Shane’s face, as he escorted the bigger man out the backdoor, was a mess of doubt, not, maybe, into Faraday’s abilities, but absolutely into Red Harvest’s sanity.

Faraday dragged his feet, stumbled, his voice a high-pitched string of drunken complaints, but never violent.

“You wanna see a card trick? I’m a magician, you know?” From the shadows of the tree line that bordered the casino’s backyard, Red beseeched his cousin to not fall for it. It was so easy to forget that Shane was not just a rancher and a security feed watcher.

“No thank you, Mr. Faraday. But thanks for the offer. I wish you a pleasant night. You are banned in all Casino’s of Comanche Nation Entertainment until further notice.”

He pushed Faraday the last step and before the gambler could turn, the heavy door slammed shut.

Faraday had not once reached for his weapon. A point in his favor. Red Harvest holstered his.

“Well, fuck me sideways.” As Faraday stretched with a low groan, pulled back his broad shoulders and let his head drop back, he almost looked sober. When he stood straight again, straighter than before, his searching right hand found the door frame to steady himself.

“Well, fuck me sideways…,” he repeated and swiveled around to face Red Harvest.

“Good evening, Mr. Faraday.”

The weapon was in the gambler’s hand faster than Red Harvest could have drawn.

“No ill intentions. I come with an offer.” Red lifted his hands in a show of peaceful intent and waited. Faraday might be drunk, his gun hand was not.

“Have you ever heard about phones?”

Faraday rubbed his left hand over his face and shook his head before he leveled an incredulous look at red Harvest “Did you just get me kickbanned from a casino?”

“All Comanche Casinos.” Red smiled.

“Why?”

“You cheated and I had a debt to settle. I also got a job lined up. Looking for some men to join us.”

Something sprang alive in Faraday’s bright eyes, blatant interest.

“Yeah?”

He lowered the weapon and took a step closer, all traces of the bumbling idiot vanished. “Is it difficult?” Fine lines fanned out from his eyes, testament of a life lived too fast and too hard, and, of course, the fact that he had to concentrate hard to appear sober. In his defense, he succeeded. Only someone with ample experience with drunks would know the difference.

“Some say impossible.” Faraday’s smile grew.

“How many you got so far?”

“You, me,” Red shrugged. “The boss.”

Faraday’s eyebrow rose in a slow and steady movement and the harder he thought the higher it seemed to climb, but the smile never faltered.

“I love people who want me! Is there money in it?” The weapon vanished as Faraday looked Red Harvest once over, noticed the holster at his side, the knife sheath at his ankle.

They stood perhaps three feet apart in a deserted backyard, warbled pop music drafting through the dry night air. Killing distance.

“Adequate. The client has the means and an account set aside. It also might include readmission to the Comanche Casinos and a lack of a ban in any other native casinos across the states.” Red’s smile dropped. “And you’d get your car back.”

“My CAR?!” Faraday took off in a sprint.

 

As Red sauntered around the corner a pickup truck vanished through the red lights down the street, a burgundy Ford Mustang in tow.

“That was low.” Faraday locked a sideways glance at Red Harvest, eyes narrowed and a deep frown furrowing his forehead. Overall, though, he didn’t seem too bothered, “What even do Indians want with dreamshare?”

The knife sat comfortably against Red Harvest’s leg, a silent reminder that he could kill the man any time, in theory, if not in reality. He had heard worse from sober people.

“You are drunk and not in a state to drive.” Red Harvest marched over to his own car, a generous gift from his employer via Chisolm. “And we are on a schedule here. We have three weeks to set up while Bartholomew Bogue is in Europe and before his case goes to court and three days to get to California.”

“We could fly, you know that, right?”

“Flying coach or driving a 5er BMW…” Red leveled an eyebrow at him. “Not a question.”

Faraday could have walked away at that moment, gone after his car and likely gotten it back. He could have swallowed the ban and waved off the money.

Instead, he shrugged off his ugly jacket revealing the fighter’s physique it had hidden, including the weapon he carried. He tore open the passenger door and flung the jacket onto the back seat before he dropped into the seat. Only when the car’s doors had closed, Faraday picked up the previous train of thought.

“Bart Bogue? The robber baron?”

“Among other things. International crime lord, for example.”

“Who the heck are we working for?”

The BMW came to life with a soft, quivering purr.

“And who the heck are you?”

 

***

 

Morning already rolled in and touched the windows with fine tendrils of mist when Vasquez closed the laptop and pushed back the chair. He snatched the pack of cigarillos off the table and lit one on his way to the kitchen. The numbers were not good.

But at least they were better than they had been at midnight. There were still accounts they couldn’t reach, blocked by a line of security measures Vasquez had set up for this exact case.

 

A nice house in the hills above Portland had its perks. High-speed internet. A private spot to heal your gunshot wounds. He sucked in a healthy lungful of smoke. A DeLonghi coffee machine…

Peace and quiet to salvage whatever was left of your life after your treacherous, donkey fucking assholes of partners tried to one-up you and left you for dead. A little present for the police. Peace and quiet to fuck up their lives.

The veranda door slid back with the whisper sound of expensive precision, opening the immaculate garden and the perfect morning to his senses. The light appeared not yet golden but still silverish blue as the pale shimmer of the almost full moon broke on the fog and the last minutes of darkness. Another drag of the cigarillo, Vasquez leaned his hip against the railing and breathed in the velvet bitterness of the coffee.

Machner had just received an invitation for a job. A shame that Vasquez had to stay holed up in some rich - and absent - couple’s garden shed slash guest house because those fucking pendejos had snitched him out to the FBI and Interpol.

His fantasy had to suffice to imagine the Extractor’s face when the BND waited for him with a judge signed invitation to talk about state secrets. Looking over his shoulder, Vasquez found his PASIV case, slightly banged up but fully functional, waiting for him under the desk. He hadn’t yet dared to go under again, his position too vulnerable still, but soon… soon.

After clearing out his Portland stack of somnacin he had enough to work again. Do a few jobs. A soon as he could take jobs again without being shot on sight.

His left shoulder gave a sharp twinge as the muscles clenched in the cold morning air and he rolled it with a low growl.

Suarez he had sold to one of the cartels. Dick move, granted, and pure delight. That left Li and Riley.

Li and her money spending habit made her vulnerable. As for Riley… the time would come.

 

Vasquez stubbed out the cigarillo on the railing and pocketed the butt. He had already lifted the coffee pot for the last swig when the sound of a car door broke the peace.

Security came by at 8 am and 10 pm, the cleaning lady showed up at eleven, gardener every two weeks on Wednesday. Other than that, nobody had any business in this house for the next three months.

“Mierda.” The fog swallowed his words and his movement. Whoever walked up that hill…

The door whispered shut and snicked close with the illusion of safety and the false comfort it brought. Vasquez slammed the coffee pot on the table and started to pack.   

 

***

 

_You letting your hair grow out?_

The message popped up on the head-up display of the BMW five hours out of Oklahoma.

Red Harvest grinned. His passenger had finally given in to alcohol and exhaustion and fallen asleep an hour into their drive after Red had refused to answer any more questions. Since then it had only been him, a clear night on the I-40 that had slowly crept to a gentle sunrise and the heartbeat drum rhythms and angry voice in his headset.

“Message to Shane:” he instructed his phone. “Maybe. Haven’t decided yet.’”

_Edgy! ^^_

Red Harvest brushed a hand over his hair and laughed softly.

Only to school it when the body on the passenger seat stirred.

Faraday blinked into the morning light with a foul-breathed yawn and reached under his seat for the bottle of water he'd stored there earlier.

He chugged down a handful of large gulps before he wiped his mouth and turned to Red.

There was no time to figure out his intent. 70mp/h or not, Faraday plucked the wireless from Red’s ear and cut the connection. Whatever he had expected, perhaps a phone call, the BMW’s sound system sprung to life and pumped war drums into the car.

Crystal clear, brilliant. And loud.

“SHIT!”  Faraday’s scream drowned in music. Red grabbed the steering wheel a little tighter, calmly drumming the rhythm on the fake leather, warmed to his hand and left the gambler to try and deal with the sound settings.

It took him 20 seconds, then the noise level dropped back to human levels.

Faraday fell back against his seat.

"What was that?"

"Music." Chisolm perhaps would mind only a little if he kicked Faraday out and let him walk to Albuquerque.

"You don't say...,” Faraday quipped, pulling a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. He took one look at Red, narrowed his eyes and exchanged them for a pack of gums from a different pocket.

He even offered them to Red first.

"It come with a name attached?" While in the background the music continued.

"Frank Waln." Red smiled, not bothering to make it gentle. "Calms me."

"Yeah, alright." Faraday cast a last glance at the display on the middle console. “Wake me in two ‘n I take over,” and curled back into his seat. _“_ Sure hope you like Iron Maiden.”

 

***

 

Chisolm locked his sidearm into the glove compartment and turned to face Emma Cullen.

“Yes, Agent?”

She didn’t bother saying anything, her face said it all.

“Man carries a gun, he intends to use it,” he explained.

This was not a gun kind of day, even with Vasquez the gun kind of guy.

Portland was still asleep, the only people on the streets in the exclusive hillside quarter the occasional jogger. The house in front of them gleamed pearl white through a row of well-kept pine trees and a six-foot fence.

No pine needles riddled the riverstone set walkway to the house. One or two leaves sat on the grass that stretched out in a neatly kept field to both sides.

“Someone’s taking good care of the property… “ Emma cast a long glance along the treeline before she stepped closer to the main house and risked a glance inside. “Impeccable. Clean. So someone regularly goes in there. Doesn’t look like the corpses of the owners lie inside.”

“No, it doesn’t…” Chisolm checked her face and smiled.

The house sat indeed completely empty, no footsteps on the veranda or any of the entrance steps, despite the recent rain.

The guesthouse, farther up the property was a different matter. Nothing obvious, nothing a casual observer noticed.

A few broken blades where a heavy shoe had dug shallowly into the grass, the profile of a combat boot imprinted on the Veranda steps that made sense only if the house had had visitors since the last cleaning and with the state of the main house, that couldn’t have been too long ago.

Chisolm pushed the entrance open with no resistance. Unlocked. His first step sounded overly loud on the polished hardwood floor. He took a second, breathing already to call out to Vasquez when behind him a body hit the floor.

Whirling around Chisolm reached for a gun that he had left in the car and even if he hadn’t…

He already looked down the barrel of one into the predator smile of a familiar face. Chisolm raised his hands to shoulder height, palms turned to the front.

Behind the smile and the sharp intelligence in the shark eyes, Vasquez seemed terribly dangerous not in the way intelligent men were, but in the way of mass murderers. Or the cold, uncaring hunter's instinct of fugitives. Chisolm couldn’t fault Emma Cullen the misconception, dangerous as it was. Especially not, since Vasquez himself did nothing to ease her terror. She lay sprawled at Vasquez's feet, arms halfway to her holster, frozen in motion at the reality of the man's weapon.

“Gun!” he snarled and kicked against her hand the moment she had drawn it for him to reach. It sailed over the wooden planks of the veranda with cheerful clatter.

“Vasquez,” Chisolm stated and earned a tilt of the man’s head that looked not remotely as fluid as the rest of his body.

Vasquez moved with the easy confidence of a man who knew he was one of the best; his shoulders curled with the knowledge of where exactly his guns sat. Though the left hitched a notch higher. "A lasso?"

Vasquez’ gaze strayed only the fraction of a second he needed to make a point and brush it over Emma, the flash of a grin as he gentled her like a particularly stubborn colt, then he shrugged with wolfish delight.

"A man of talents."

"How is the shoulder?" Chisolm let his hands sink but kept them turned away from his body. Vasquez seemed calm and in control, but nobody constantly on the run for three months from every law enforcement agency and possibly every headhunter and criminal on the continental US had any healthy paranoia level left.  

"Good enough, eh" Once more, Vasquez tugged at the rope, tutting away Emma's spitfire protest.

He stared at Chisolm. "What do you want?"

"My name is Sam Chisolm, I am..."

"I know. You come to collect the bounty, FBI?" Vasquez breath came in short bursts, despite the deadly calm as his eyes shifted over Chisolm, searching, probably, for another weapon

His left held the lasso, grip firm, overly so. Chisolm took all this in, the trouble the man still had, the lone coffee abandoned on the table, he had seen when he had entered earlier, the gentle chaos of a lived-in space that still very much didn’t feel like Vasquez.

Arthur had told a chilling tale when he had sent over the vignette on Vasquez' location and seeing it now, it seemed true.

“I have a business proposition for you.”

Vasquez jerked his head towards Emma with a disbelieving snort that flashed into a cynical smile. “Does this business involve her?”

“Yes, it does.” Sam at that moment wouldn't have taken a bet who of them she would murder first, though chances stood, it would be him.

On the other hand, as Vasquez once more gentled her like an unruly foal…

“Wipe that smile off your face….!” No need for the ‘... or else!’ She already eviscerated the man with her eyes. And unexpectedly, Vasquez expression gentled.

“And after our business concluded, what then?” He turned to Chisolm once more, all business, his leering unveiled for the cheap tactic it was.

“You will still have a lot of men after your hide….”

“And should give me any comfort….?”

“Sure, the FBI won’t be among them.”

Chisolm had expected a lot of reactions, coming here. Vasquez had a reputation and it was as brilliant, as it was ruthless. Where rumors said he came from, anybody, but the most dangerous men, didn’t survive. So when sudden, desperate hope lit those murderous eyes from within Chisolm took a mental step back and re-evaluated him and this whole situation. Not something he often did in his job.

Five seconds of this painful hope warring with the paranoia and he knew he had won him when Vasquez face lit up with fiendish delight.

Vasquez didn’t just holster the gun, he spun it once around his hand and thumbed the safety on in one artful motion.

“You loco, my friend.”

Low laughter followed in his wake, as he walked past Chisolm into the guesthouse, the rope left behind for Emma to untangle.

“Well, that went well.” Chisolm reached out to help her up, facing her wrath head-on.

“Are you insane? This man is…”

“Trust me, Miss Cullen. Try to look past what you see. You are still young, so take this as a life lesson. The man has nothing to lose and everything to win and his winning ticket is this mission.”

Her doubts never found a voice, as Vasquez walked back out in that moment, a Laptop bag slung over his shoulder, slapping idly against a backpack on his back, in his other hand, a PASIV case.

“Have you received therapy for the wound?” Chisolm appraised him and once more his gaze caught on Vasquez’ unbalanced left shoulder

“My friend, I barely receive a doctor.” Vasquez's voice dripped with cynism.

Their eyes locked, Chisolm’s gaze understanding, Vasquez’ threaded with old anger.

“We will have to remedy that. Vamonos!”

“Eh… not so fast!” Vasquez pushed past Chisolm and Emma both to block the door. “One condición…”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to CyanideBreathmint who supported me with her invaluable advice on clothing and weapons.

“You gotta hate what you are fighting! You gotta hate the invasion of your privacy! Of your most private self. Your _dreams_!“

“Sir, we are talking about industrial espionage here, not….“ The young man with his fashionable haircut gulped around the word, like his bosses probably gulped around the word ‘taxes’. A far cry from the pale understanding of the very few women and one lone man in the group. Far from Goody’s barely subdued rage.

“What happened to him?“ Emma’s voice murmured on the cautious side of polite, her eyes glued to Goody’s impassioned display in the shining Silicon Valley meeting room on the other side of the two-way glass panel.

“Worked freelance for too long, saw too much. He lost a few people on his watch. To bad drugs, to murder.“

Emma shuddered next to him.

“He describes it as if he has been through it.“ As Chisolm looked over he found in her eyes no pity for his friend, only understanding and cool calculation.

“Dreamshare is intensely personal. If someone gets this close, they can cut you much deeper and with much more precision.“

“Is that why you left Vasquez at the hotel? To spare him this talk?“ Her nod indicated Goodnight.

Chisolm smiled. “No. Vasquez needs to see a doctor. I didn’t leave you behind, just because women seem to grasp the concept of rape so much more acutely, either.“

Emma didn’t flinch when Chisolm spoke out what the R&D nerds and young managers in the conference room avoided saying like the plague.

“You think he can do it?“

“Depending on what the doctor says, we’ll take Vasquez through his paces tonight and find out.“ Chisolm didn't sound overly concerned. He wasn’t. Vasquez had a survivor’s soul and unless someone intentionally shredded the safe calm he had built for himself for now, he would walk away intact.

“I was talking about him,“ Emma said and nodded to where Goody just paired up the women and the sole man who had reacted to the analogy in an exercise against the one who had dismissed it.

Chisolm released a slow breath. “He’s one of the best point men out there, even if he switched to the security sector. Meticulous, careful. Because of what he already saw happen, not despite.

Everything else?” He shrugged. “That's why we come prepared.”

 

“Goody!” Sam opened his arms as Goodnight Robicheaux stepped out of the room.

“Sam Chisolm, as I live and breathe! What brings you to the lowly lands of actual money-making folks?” Despite his earlier outburst, the man sounded friendly, bordering on jovial as he wrapped his arms around Sam’s shoulders.

“You got my email?” Sam asked and turned to introduce Agent Cullen who regarded Goodnight with the intense scrutiny of a cat.

“Goodnight Robicheaux, Agent Cullen. My pleasure.” She didn't react quick enough to pull her hands out of Goody's friendly grasp and she lacked the experience to pull away from his charm.

“My, your hands are cold. Are you nervous? Don’t be, ma chère!”

Sam left them to it, their soft voices relegated to background noise as he watched Goody’s partner hook up both training groups each to their PASIV.

“I am not nervous, Mr. Robicheaux,” she said with the steel threaded undertone that came out every time something or someone reminded her of her husband. Sam didn’t know what had set her off now, but there it went. “I am angry.”

“Oh, not at me, I hope. I always try to avoid a woman's ire and it wou…”

“That's Billy?” Sam turned from the window to Goody and smiled, one eye sitting easily on the man inside the room with his perfectly angular face and shining hair that he had wrapped into a loose bun and fixated with a shining silver hair pin. Maybe one of the few people on the planet to wear a classic pitch black suit and white dress shirt and not look like he got lost on his way to a funeral.

Goodnight followed Sam’s pointer, instead of being irritated at the interruption, and his eyes lit up.

“Yes. That's him.”

Goodnight Robicheaux wouldn't be himself if he didn't turn even that little into a show for the beautiful woman.

“Met him in a bar in Texas. I was working for my friend Sam here who had heard some rather disquieting things. So, I walk into that shady hovel and find that petite son of a bitch take on the whole room, bare-knuckled, and I thought… ’Goodnight,’ I thought. ‘That is not a man to arrest. This is a man to befriend!’” He topped his tale with a flourish of his hand and a bow, just for Emma and this time, he got her to smile. “So I did and here we are.”

“Here we are,” Sam echoed and held out his hand to the subject of their talk that just stepped out of the room. “Sam Chisolm. An honor.”

Goody’s partner gave Sam the once over before flicking a glance over Emma Cullen that Sam swore saw everything. Lastly, he glanced at Goody, shook his head and locked his palm with Sam’s. “What you want, Mr. Chisolm, I’m not sure, we can deliver. Safely.”

Barely veiled protectiveness colored the threat and took much of its cutting edge in its wake.  

Billy Rocks seemed as Goody had described it, petite, slender and graceful like a dancer with soulful black eyes and the perfect face of a model. He also appeared like a man able and willing to kill another without prior notice.

Sam knew. He had tried to check him out and come up with little that was not disquieting, his only reassurance Goodnight Robicheaux’s promise that he knew who he had partnered up with.

_He’s no more or less dangerous than us, Sam. We all are proficient killers. What makes us safe to roam the streets is nothing but our decision not to employ our skills… indiscriminately._

 

“I think, you can, Mr. Rocks. Though I originally had only requested Goodnight for this job.”

“Billy’s with me. Where I go, Billy goes.” Goodnight cut in, an edge to his voice.

It was rare to listen to Goodnight Robicheaux speak with no bluster and nothing but conviction in his voice. But now as his eyes sat on the Korean’s face and his movement automatically swerved around Sam to get to his side, Sam saw something of the old Goody.

“And where he goes, I follow.” The old Goody, who was head over heels with a man whose face seemed to be made of marble, the only sign he had just listened to a declaration of absolute devotion a tightening around the eyes and an unholy fire shimmering deep within.

“Well, then that’s settled I guess,” Sam said, as Emma in the background shook her head, though a certain, pain-laced wistfulness softened her expression. “Gentlemen, meet up tomorrow in LA, at the following address...”

Sam’s eyes went to Goody without a hitch.

“Sam Chisolm…,“ Goodnight lamented good-naturedly and pulled from his chest pocket a business card. “The house is for sale. Private, but good traffic connections. It comes with a pool.”

 

Walking down the corridor with Billy Rocks’ eyes on their backs was nothing Sam Chisolm would like to repeat at any point. Still, there was no question about taking the man on his team because in all of their years together, from the day Goodnight dragged him by the literal scruff from a burning building to the night Sam found him shot and bleeding on his doorstep, he never had seen Goodnight Robicheaux this at peace.

 

***

 

They found Vasquez fast asleep on the couch in their hotel room, dressed down to his  jeans and a hand curled around one hell of an extravagant Colt Python, chromed, with mother of pearl inlay on the handle, the holster dropped to the floor from limp hands when sleep claimed him. His black hair curled around his rough face with the unexpected gentleness of a fresh haircut. A stunning contrast to the white bandage taped just under his left collarbone. 

A precarious spot to be shot. Could go over well. Could shatter a major blood vessel, the lung or drive splinters of a rib into the heart.

Another barely healed mark sat low on his left waist, an angry groove, cut where a bullet had taken a part out of his body. The last, visible only from this position and with his hair this short, was a small bald patch that dug in just under his hairline and would forever be a finger long scar on his scalp.

“Head wounds bleed a lot,” Vasquez’ gravel infused voice murmured from the couch, only a sliver of dark eyes visible below his lashes. “Can no longer see if the bullet is in the skull, no?” His lips stretched into a brutal grin, a wolf on a blood trail. “Lucky me.”

“Lucky you,” Emma said from the kitchenette behind the couch, a glass of water in her hand. She couldn’t see how Vasquez moved his eyes in her direction but did nothing to lift his head from the pillow. “What did the doctor say? Ready to go to work?”

Vasquez’ low laughter, as he forced himself upright, hid the wince of pain. “I’m always ready for work. Dreaming is the best pain killer.”

And suddenly Chisolm understood. “You refused to take pain killers for…” He indicated the bandage taped to Vasquez’ chest, hoping he was wrong and the idiot had not had a minor operation done without anesthetics.

“I did not dream in three months. Never been safe enough to go under, Mr. Chisolm…”

Never safe enough... Chisolm sighed. He should probably have expected something like that. Anesthetics would not only have interfered with Vasquez’ ability to go under Somnacin for at least 24 hours, they would have put him into artificial sleep. In foreign surroundings with people he didn’t know and no chance for safety measures. With a shake of his head, Chisolm followed Emma to the kitchenette calling back over his shoulder, “It all good now?”

“For now. Gotta have a bigger surgery to fix up the lung lobe later.” Vasquez shrugged, followed by a pained flinch. “But for now? Sí. Good as new.”

Vasquez pushed himself to his feet with a curse and sauntered over to Chisolm and Emma. He moved with the inborn fluidity of a dancer and the dangerous control of a fighter. Looking at him from up close he presented the perfect image of a Mexican outlaw, only helped a long by the shadow of an abstract tattoo curving around his right rib cage. Except for the way he avoided Chisolm’s eyes by studying the contents of the fridge - a gallon of milk, a pack of Budweiser and an apple.

Sam took the cup of coffee Emma handed him with a grateful nod and left them to their own devices.

 

“... you’ll make it. And it’s not like you’re alone when you go under.” Emma’s voice sounded over as Sam fired up his laptop in the living space of the suite, oddly gentle, and as Sam looked he found Vasquez leaning his back against the fridge and Emma next to him against the sink, closer than he’d thought Vasquez would allow.

“Yeah, you figure?” Vasquez snorted, gaze glued to her face. “How’d you do it, Agent?”

“I thought, I couldn’t…,” Emma admitted and hesitated. “But then Bogue would have won. So I built a dream…filled it with projections created from our wanted or no-longer-wanted databases.” Something passed between them, something that Sam Chisolm, the psychologist understood in theory, but that Sam Chisolm, Extractor, couldn’t quite grasp. To him it was always the subjects, never quite so much the dream itself, not in the way it was for an architect, or, it seemed for Vasquez.

“You destroy it?”

“I took a gun and killed everything in it that moved.” She paused. “Then I destroyed whatever I got my hands on.”

“Did it help?” Vasquez' voice sounded faintly amused with just a touch of knowing.

“I was so busy tearing things apart, I had no time to be scared if that’s what you mean.”

“Agent Cullen…,” Vasquez started up and the smirk on his face belied the hope in his eyes, “you fancy a trip? Build a little? Your pick.”

She let him operate the PASIV himself, only stepped in when he tried to drag the armchair over to the couch.

“Don’t be daft,” she chided, “You’re injured.” Vasquez let her.

Chisolm watched them out of the corner of his eyes while he worked his way through his mail accounts. Vasquez brushed his fingers over his PASIV - the serial number declared it former property of the US army -, reverently wiped an imaginary dust speck off the hull.

If Emma Cullen was bothered by the fact that Vasquez insisted on operating the PASIV, wearing a gun belt with two loaded revolvers, one of which he held in his hand when he went under, she didn’t say.

 

From: arthur@cobb-inc.com

To: s.chisolm

Re: crazy doctor    

 

Hello Sam,

 

Found your man in a cabin in the Cascades. Whether the isolation got him or his guilt I don’t know, but sane is not what I would call Jack Horne. He lives 100% autarkic in a solar powered hut in the woods, writing papers by candlelight and volunteers at a clinic in Warm Springs once a week. Though how they get him off his mountain is beyond me.

I pitched your case. He was disinclined at first, said, he was out and wanted to stay that way, which reminded me only very little of you, to be honest.

In the end, it was a mix of the challenge of what you are attempting and the target that turned him around. I would stick to that narrative during the job. Horne normally refuses anything, not within the legal confines of the law, but he agreed your cause is just.

You owe me big time, Sam. Bogue on a silver tray will do nicely.

 

Did you know that the common ink cap creates acute sensitivity to alcohol? Neither did I. I am still debating whether I just got lucky and Horne likes me or if he did not really ponder killing me.

 

Good luck, Sam. Keep me posted.

 

A.

 

Sam huffed a soft laugh. Horne was notoriously difficult, but his research into sub-level drug calibration was unprecedented. That left…

Narrowing his eyes, he hovered over the second email in his private high-security email account.

“Shipping Notice”  Curious, for someone who had no habit whatsoever of ordering online.

Spam, most likely. Dangerous, possibly. On the other hand, he knew who supplied security for that server and the chances for any kind of malware were close to nil. Same went for spam.

It proved to be a simple DHL overnight notice from a storage facility in Albuquerque to LA. 97 lbs. Oversize fees. Paid for by one J. Vasquez.

A few feet away, Vasquez lounged in the armchair, still dressed only in heavy duty jeans and socks, fingers curled tightly around his gun, the other arm resting easily in his lap.

The PASIV clocked down at 3 minutes still.

Chisolm snorted a laugh and picked up the phone to call room service.

It was his own damn fault for leaving Vasquez alone in the vicinity of his computer. And it had been pure courtesy on Vasquez’ part to let Chisolm know about it.

“What did you have shipped,” he asked him over dinner and received a carefully corralled predator’s grin in return.

“My stuff. Clothing. I don’t like looking like un vagabundo.” Vasquez munched around a fry as he pondered, then shrugged. “My mail is not safe yet. Also, Chisolm. Don’t leave your computer standing around like this.”

 

***

 

Billy Rocks, as they called him, curled his fingers into his lover’s hair, turning closer to his body, seeking warmth as the sweat cooled on their bodies.

Goody laughed, his lips brushing over Billy’s jaw with soft familiarity, down the soft skin of his neck with open reverence.

“Are you sure, you’re up for this, Goody?” Billy dared not speak louder than a soft murmur, as if the night could listen in on them with the gentle breeze that cooled their hotel room.

“You know what? I don’t know.” Goodnight sighed and wrapped both arms around Billy’s shoulders. “But I know that I cannot refuse him my help. Not with this.” He felt more than he heard Billy’s sigh against his skin. The brush of gentle lips that were gentle only for him. “And I got you.” He chuckled. “Point man’s point man.”

“Always.” It sounded like a promise around Billy’s smile.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've read previous works of mine, you'll know that I usually clock at at least 8k a chapter.  
> Those here are incredibly short and I don't know why. A story has its own mind sometimes and maybe it will change in the near future and you will be hit with 13k monstrosities again. Who knows ^^


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Super huge thanks to Susan who is like Red Harvest's godmother and makes sure I treat the boy right. Also: iron pony jokes and long comprehensive reading lists.  
> That said, I know some of you might be unsure if it's OK to laugh at the Mustang joke. I am glad you are asking this question. Heads up with good authority: it is!  
> and thanks to ThrillingDetectiveTales for encouragement and he patient repetition of: I'm sure, it doesn't suck.
> 
> thanks

It was not - and he would fight that accusation to the rest of his life - Joshua Faraday’s fault that they were late.

He hadn’t caused the pile up on the interstate that forced him to hole up in a dingy motel with a stoic Indian that could have given Seneca a run for his money.

And nobody, absolutely nobody could blame him for trying to get Red Harvest drunk enough to spill the beans about his mysterious dream super power. “I am a shadow” was an insufficient answer if Faraday had ever heard one.

There was something shitty to say about a native beating an Irish at alcohol, some connection Faraday should not be drawing, so he hadn’t and instead had clinked their glasses together with a wistful “potatoes” and kept on drinking.

He still didn’t know anything about what was wrong with that kid, aside from his love for weirdly catchy Lakota hip hop and the fact that Faraday’s car now gathered rust on his cousin’s farm. Oh, and he had been in the army. That was definitely wrong.

The hangover kinda had been Faraday’s fault, and damn, it was hard to decide on clothing when your brain was so much mush and refused to choose a persona.

 

Then there had been the fact that, apparently, brown men driving BMW’s through some Beverly Hills ripoff where a cause to call the national guard as far as LA police were concerned.

And while Faraday had not miraculously developed some deeper connection to the native kid behind the wheel, Faraday plain sucked at deeper connections, and, yeah, he could be an asshole most days, but the patient look on Red Harvest’s face pissed him off.

The first time, he let Red Harvest simply pull off his Seneca routine while they checked his identity, his car’s identity, his cute little card that basically branded him intellectual property of the FBI and possibly his tax return, while they were at it.

The second time, though, not quite 20 minutes later, Faraday lost it. Not loud, just furiously in the way of a man who remembered ‘catholic’ being a slur when his momma’s employer had used it, right after he commented on the fuckability of red-heads.

That made a reminder twice in as many days and god damn, he didn’t need that.

It really wasn’t his fault that the nice officers insisted on calling the FBI, who directed them to Chisolm, just to confirm that his company car hadn’t been stolen.

Not Faraday’s fault. But he needed that coffee. Red Harvest hadn’t said anything, had just ordered a large black coffee for himself and silently, finally driven them to the address Chisolm had ordered them to.

  


In the world of dream share, one rarely worked with a completely unknown group. Among the incestuous little circles and the rarity of good Forger’s, Faraday had prided himself on having worked with almost everybody or their Cousin Vinny at that point.

Almost everybody, except, everybody gathered in the basement game room of a stately little villa that sat among lush green grass and a living privacy screen of juniper bushes under the unforgiving California sun.

As he had stepped through the front door, his chucks had squeaked accusingly on the polished tiles of understated marble, the mirror above a faux Louis XIV. bench throwing back the picture of dark shadows under his eyes mixing badly with the burgundy scarf around his neck and a factory worker’s fine-rib undershirt over khaki pants. He looked like an accidental hipster after a tour of duty at Coachella. Starbucks and all.

“The Fuck, subconscious,” he muttered and started as a shadow appeared at his shoulder, faintly judging frown on his face.

“They’re waiting,” Red Harvest supplied, sipping from his own Starbucks cup, that looked in _his_ hands like it belonged to an honest, hard-working man. Thanks.

Red Harvest had not divulged any of the other players besides Chisolm, but Faraday at least had expected a familiar face, someone to greet him amicably or with disdain, however they chose. Except: nada.

Not one. There was Chisolm, of course, dressed in fashionable black from head to toe, leaning against one of a row of work tables at the front of the room. But everybody and their mom had heard about Chisolm and seen his righteous visage on some scientific handout or another. And next to him, a slender red-head, darkest copper to Faraday’s strawberry, that looked ready for murder as her eyes fell on him. She was pretty, all ‘dark storm clouds and murder’ pretty with a nice, fit figure to go with it, but something in the way she held herself warned every interested party within 50 miles to not even try it. And behind her, a kid that looked her age, but with half the iron threading her spine.

 

Off to the side, but still at the front of an open circle of a leather couch and armchairs and the obligatory lounge chairs, sat a man who seemed oddly familiar in the way, washed-out paintings were.

Not only had he managed to raid his own grandfather’s closet for a suit that was still sharp a hundred years later, the heavy tweed, the faded dark-blue of the pocket square and his vest mixed so perfectly with the salt and pepper nothingness of his hair and perfectly trimmed beard that the only distinction between him and Lord Fauntleroy where the fleur-de-lis studs on his lapels. That was a man to unironically wear suspenders.

Thinking of it… had his vest been just a little more blue, Faraday had been tempted to drag the faux Louis XIV from upstairs in here himself, only to see so much nobility slouch on that thing as he now slouched on an upcycled IKEA table.

Nobody dressed like that, except someone rich and Cajun. Which considerably narrowed the field of contestants. There was only one Cajun worth mentioning in dream share. Fuck.

If someone called Goodnight went dreaming, shit was about to get thick.

 

Opposite him, in one of the two armchairs, not at the front, but aligned perfectly with Goodnight Robicheaux’s position sat his exact mirror. Sharp as a cut diamond in a black setting, neither the soft curve of his glossy hair nor his stylish neo-Japanese couture sweater with the wide sleeves and faint impression of print on the black, did anything to gentle the unrelenting precision of his posture. The coiled spring energy that lived in his stillness.

Faraday saw the ornate hairpin that held his hair in a bun at the back of his head and thought ‘totem’, knowing full well that a man wearing his sanity so carelessly, like an invitation to try, was either crazy or crazy good.

He was also one hell of a beautiful bastard.

 

Next to him, like a stone dropped onto the couch, sat what amounted to a leather clad bear in human form. He was knitting.

  


Recognition finally hit with the last guy, not all long-legged 6’ something of his and it was not recognition per se, nothing but an itch breathing down on Faraday’s neck, an _‘I know’_. Sadly it was mournfully silent on what exactly he knew.

The guy sure was memorable and if not him, then his outfit. Blacks slacks, white shirt, black silk vest with just a hint of burgundy peeking through at the shoulders and, behind him, thrown with the carelessness of someone who said ‘i don’t need to care’, a black suit jacket. So far so normal. Except his shirt was loose-armed linen, no collar, yet open to reveal the stark contrast of bronze skin beneath and a saint’s coin nestling snuggly against his throat on a chewed up leather band, smooth and touch worn.

The shirt somehow invoked the image of a shy maiden kneeling, the soft fabric to slide off her shoulders as she stood in a waterfall of purity, held only in place by a pair of engraved silver chain cufflinks. Or, which was likely, Faraday had seen one soft porn too many on the pay per view tv in the motel the night before. He didn’t exactly remember. He’d been drunk. But images had a tendency to burn themselves into his memory whether he wanted them to or not. Faraday saw everything and sometimes everything stared back.

The image got only more ridiculous in the face of the man himself. Not innocent, decidedly not innocent. The softest about him must have been his not quite black hair, tousled in that casually windswept way that survived 48 hours after a haircut at most. Between the scruffy beard and the heavy brows framing a nose broken one time too many, he oozed a natural brutality, the image of something feral and dangerous, wolf-like. Not cruel though, nothing in possession of honest to god mahogany colored eyes could ever appear cruel.

As if he knew, he shaded them with his drawn brows and misdirected with shiny glitter and bling. Silver wristwatch - expensive model - silver-studded leather belt. Silver tipped cowboy boots. Silver colt sitting much too comfortably on his hip.

The man caught Faraday staring and he grinned, shining white, coyote sharp and it was that grin that brought the idea of recognition to life once more, a stuttering flash of memory; people dying in a hail of bullets.

Projection, his brain supplied and Faraday snorted.

Husseini’s defensive projection of an outlaw had seemed over the top at the time, but yes. No.

Now that he sat across the real deal, not just a black blur in the distance, or a shadow slinking away from a bar in Saubert’s recreation of New Orleans... nope. The Moroccan had tamped it down, his image probably hampered by sheer disbelief that something like this, living and breathing, walked the earth.  

“Oh, great,” Faraday heard himself saying, aware that every eye in the room was on him. Aware, too, of the challenge in that damn grin, that had yet to falter. “we got ourselves a Mexican.”

 

The moment broke and Faraday stepped inside, challenge on the outlaw’s face replaced by an even brighter challenge in his eyes and of course, Sam Chisolm’s annoyance. Too righteous that man, by far.

“Thank you for joining us, Mr. Faraday. We were expecting you yesterday.”

“Pile up,” Faraday grumped and flopped down in a bare lawn chair, his coffee too cold to hurt when a few droplets splashed over his hand. He would, he knew, regret his choice of seating in half an hour tops, but right then, all he wanted was to get out of their attention for just a little while. Acclimatize to the strange people, get a feel on them.

Only a man who didn’t care for his own ridicule could ever be truly successful in his line of work. Be that card sharking or people copying. A reminder, just for himself, as the Mexican’s eyebrow climbed up when Faraday plopped the sunglasses onto his nose.

 

***

 

“Now, Gentlemen, that we have finally all gathered… “ Chisolm said, with the slightly grating patience of a man who knew he could afford to wait and scanned the assembled assortment of misfits over the rim of his coffee cup. “I want you to know how much I appreciate your presence.” His eyes flicked to Faraday with a curl of his mouth. “Especially you, Mr. Faraday, despite the short notice invitation.”

“Your Comanche towed my Mustang,” Faraday shrugged. “‘T’s  not like I got much else to do.”

“That’s… isn’t that racist?” The kid behind the redhead at Chisolm’s side whispered, loud enough for all to hear and Red Harvest doubled over wheezing on the other side of the room as Faraday sniffed towards the college boy.

“No, ‘t’s the fucking truth is what it is, kid,” before he hurled a “Shuddup!” with as much disdain as he could muster towards his still laughing travelling companion.

“Thank you, Mr. Faraday. I’m sure arrangements can be made for the retrieval of your car in due time. Thank you, Red Harvest.” There his voice got a notch louder, though below, under the obvious admonishment, it brimmed with barely contained amusement. “We all appreciate your humor, but could we please?”

Red Harvest turned towards the wall in his back, once, shoulders shaking, took a deep breath and turned around, his face a perfectly schooled mask of professional interest. Huh.

Faraday wasn’t the only who noticed.

Both the Asian fashion model and the outlaw cast the kid a glance as if they hadn’t really noticed him before. And that, too, was curious.

Chisolm just shook his head and pushed away from the table in his back.

“You all know, what this is about and since every one of you showed up, I gather, we are doing this.” He reached back and with a wave of a remote, the light dimmed, the projector in the ceiling sprung to live and they were graced with the visage of Bartholomew Bogue, as lifted from his business website.

Chisolm sidled back to Robicheaux’s table and left the field to the redhead. The bluish twilight tinged her skin in the color of a shroud, a few freckles on her cheeks stark under her waif huge eyes. There was no file for her, no tablet or phone to read from. This girl knew everything there was to know about Bartholomew Bogue and Faraday couldn’t help but wonder what he had taken from her to spawn such devotion.

She started simple enough, listed the dates of his life, birthday, parents, his school career, and Faraday closed his eyes halfway through, tilting back his head until he could barely keep up the pretense of watching, even with the sunglasses. He didn’t much care either way. Important were her words and what he heard in her voice.

Emma Cullen of the CIA, architect of project Rose Creek. Looked like Rose Creek dried up and she was the last flower left. She had been crying recently, her voice gaining depth with the residue hoarseness of rough sobs. And she used it to fuel her hate. Good woman.

Faraday could respect that. What he couldn’t respect appeared to be the endless list of Bogue’s crimes, suspected crimes, ‘we’re pretty sure he’s done that crimes’ and he’s the Grinch. He did not, absolutely not, plan on dozing off. He was just damn tired and still somewhat hungover.

That did not mean, he appreciate the hard clank of a coin bouncing off his forehead.

The Mexican smirked at him from behind his beard, next coin already dancing on his palm.

“You wanna see that, Forger, no?” He spoke gently, just enough to carry his voice to Faraday, his head tipped towards the front where ‘KNOWN ASSOCIATES’ spanned half the wall.

Faraday pulled the sunglasses down and rubbed his eyes. The coffee still sitting on his lap was cold by now and just about as disgusting as he needed to shock his system into an approximation of life. He’d read through the files anyways. Later, when everybody was doing their thing.

But it couldn’t hurt. Miss Cullen had brought pictures. Simple minds like Josh’s liked pictures.

Across on the couch, the Mexican watched him curiously, gaze flicking to the coin. Only then did it dawn on Faraday what the guy had said and a pleased spark of warmth sparked in his belly at being recognized. Faraday’s lips stretched slowly and curled into a challenge turned grin of his own. The coin flipped once over the fingers of his left, one full round, then another. His eyes stayed glued onto the projection in the front.

  
  
***

 

Goodnight Robicheaux, point man, and his assistant and private chemist, Billy Rocks. Good thing they hadn’t gone full out with the fake names.

Red Harvest, a weird subset of Forgery.

Jack Horne. Who had changed into a probably hand-dyed, self-knit sweater the moment Billy had upped the AC. Legendary Chemist. Some rumored, he had been part of the original test rounds with the army and then at some point, he had vanished from the face of the earth, only to reappear as a born-again hippie fresh out of the woods.

Emma Cullen, CIA Architect with a chip the size of Texas on her shoulder.

Sam Chisolm, head extractor with the FBI.

Vasquez, second architect, though he looked like no architect, Faraday had ever seen. Most of them had a joy for creation in their eyes, not a lust for violence. But then… look at Emma.

Him, contrary to popular belief and reputation, pretty fucking good Forger.

And Teddy, of course. The secretary.

Two architects, although Vasquez doubled up as thief upon further inspection, which suited him infinitely better in Faraday’s opinion. One and a half pointmen. One and a half Chemists. One and a half Forger and one Extractor, because Extractors did not double up.

One target.

Two levels and three objectives.

  


Faraday had stayed stretched out on his lawn chair when the others left after initial introductions and objective juggling, to get food.

Get into Bogue’s safe and get evidence.

Get any information on Bogue’s illegal activities. Victims, blackmail, bribes, anything.

Twist Bogue’s head until he couldn’t think of selling another gun, another human, of screwing someone over without disgust and terror ever again.

 

One hell of a line-up. And one hell of a challenge.

No plan.

Faraday pushed up from the chair and wandered aimlessly towards the front. Somehow - and by somehow, Faraday was pretty sure, he was right now working for a three letter agency and not just one of their agent’s private revenge trip - Emma Cullen had managed to get her hands on a hard copy of Bogue’s file.

Clock said 2 pm. Faraday’s stomach said, please don’t feed me. The others had gone up, talking animatedly among themselves, throwing ideas back and forth about showing Bogue his crumbling empire or putting him in a victim’s position but none of that clicked with Faraday yet. Bogue wasn’t a man to dream of empires, no self-styled Nero or Genghis Khan.  

The spot on the couch where Vasquez had sat was still warm. In the suddenly oxygen rich atmosphere of the room that warmth was a gentle touch on muscles who had spent too much time in a car seat lately. It was a nice warmth. Very warm, smelled faintly of cigar smoke.

Faraday snorted and flipped the file open.

“Let’s see, Mr. Bogue, who you are.”

The file, predictably, started with his birthday, -place and parents.

 

***

 

He less woke and more floated up through the mud and gravel of his own mind and undeniable alcohol problem on the wings of a musical baritone with an accent deep from the Louisiana Bayou. Faraday didn’t know _if_ there was Bayou in Louisiana or if Goodnight Robicheaux even came from Louisiana, but his voice invoked rich nights, sweltering with the moist heat of almost jungles and the soft waves of haunting music wafting through the dark.

Someone had thrown a blanket over Faraday and plucked the file from his limp fingers to return it to its rightful place. He was not exactly embarrassed at being caught reading, but still, he preferred not to be ribbed about it. So whoever ... thanks.

Opening his eyes just the fraction to get a feel for the situation found Goodnight standing in front of a huge pinboard sorting pictures, connecting pins with thread to create what Faraday liked to call a murder mood board.

Billy occupied the place on the table where his partner had sat earlier and Emma and Chisolm talked gently to the right where the armchairs sat, adding input as needed.

“... he doesn’t care for the consequences on other people. If you put him in a victim’s place, he will just shrug it off,” Chisolm supplied just at that moment.

“Then what? We show him his empire and then tear it to the ground? Somnium Scipionis?” Of course, Goodnight. Nobody else would try to Cicero an international criminal.

“I don’t think Bogue cares about his parents or his ancestors, he wants to make a name for himself. He never mentions any of them, not in any of his speeches were it’d be expected to gain sympathy and paint him in a positive light,” Red Harvest replied from somewhere behind the couch.

Faraday smiled and was about to say something as a pair of long legs in black slacks and a belt that belonged to an attraction at a cowboy fair passed his sightline, too close for comfort.

The way he moved, the way he kept his balance low in his hips, Vasquez didn’t just look like a modern caricature of a vaquero, for a moment, Faraday heard the silver spurs ring.

The moment broke when a big hand gently tapped his shin and the deep gravel voice murmured: “Move, Guero. You take up the whole couch.” Then it came back with a vengeance.

Faraday shot up, catching Vasquez in a hilariously frozen movement, half bent, his eyes snapping to Faraday’s face and one hand halfway to his gun.

“Not an Empire!” Faraday pushed the blanket off and into Vasquez's arms. “Bogue is no emperor, he doesn’t want to rule people.” He swiveled  on his heel and pointed at Red Harvest who was in the process of installing a coffee machine on a serving wagon against the back wall.

“An emperor wants to create something lasting, something to his name that will immortalize him. Bogue wants to earn. Not even to possess, but get more and more and more.”

“The Robber Baron,” Billy added from his table, his eyes narrowed in thoughtful consideration on Faraday.

“Yes. Bogue takes and he doesn’t give a crap about who it belonged to originally. “

“Well, he _is_ from Texas.” Red Harvest sniped and shoved a cup under the machine.

“White, male, Texan,” Emma Cullen looked up at Faraday and nodded at him with newfound appreciation. “He even wears a cowboy hat.”

“Sí, like every oil tycoon and big man wants. Cowboy hat is the new capitalist uniform,” Vasquez rolling baritone sounded slick with sarcasm, even as he rolled up Faraday’s blanket and sprawled himself over the vacated spot on the couch.

Goodnight cast a cheerful smile into the room, “Cowboys then? Please tell me, we are not decimating Natives.” His eyes cut a warning glance from Chisolm to Red who had already opened his mouth, but Chisolm was faster.

“No, we are not. How about a nice rural village.” He smiled. “Simple people who work the land, trying hard to make a living, to carve out a small corner of the American dream for themselves. A general store, a saloon..”

“Whores!” Vasquez threw in.

“...maybe the first beginnings of more? A bank. What could he want there so badly that we can turn it into his Alamo? Bogue is so powerful that he simply doesn’t care for anything like normal theft anymore.”

“And nobody ever became a tyrant for hunger,” Goodnight threw in, to Billy’s soft snort.

“Gold.” Red Harvest said, voice cutting. “Vasquez said oil tycoon… oil is the new gold. He will want to take their land to get to gold and they… it’s their land. It’s their home. They are simple people. They are nothing. He squashes people like them all the time and the law doesn’t care. It’s either helpless, indifferent or bought.”

“Sí. Can do much with enough money.”

“Yeah, not like that changed in the last hundred years.” Faraday brushed down his bedhead and rounded the couch to the newly installed coffee machine. “That thing working?”

Red nodded jerkily, his eyes fixed onto the front. “Yeah.”

Faraday shoved another cup under the machine and pushed the button that somehow looked like normal coffee, in the movement gently bumping his hand against Red’s arm. “Thanks, man.”

“Welcome,” Red answered and slowly let his gaze and his shoulders relax.

“So… “ In Faraday’s back, the grinder yowled the unholy song of freshly ground beans. “... this time the people squash him? That what we sayin’?”

“That what we sayin!” Goodnight confirmed and grinned.

 

***

 

The best feature about the house, Faraday decided, when he finally retreated upstairs to his room, was the AC. Out there, Californian heat baked the earth, even now, at night. Inside his room, Chicago winter reigned. Either Californians just did not appreciate the gift of sun, which he doubted, or someone had set it to freezing.

Someone who might or might not be the gentleman, Faraday had to share a bathroom with. His room’s door had been properly locked, with a much better lock than the bathroom door, and

Vasquez _was_ a thief, was he not?

On the other hand…

Faraday dropped his bag on the bed with a huff of amused annoyance.

He hadn’t even put his stuff up after they arrived, had just jumped right in and started sifting through the files of Bogue’s inner circle as if there was no tomorrow. There was. But it would be busy.

Faraday needed the laugh. So he laughed as he went to open the window to warm up the room. He wasn’t going to sleep with icicles on his nose.

Mahogany window frames, cream colored walls, thick rugs, the cupboard color coordinated with the windows. A desk of his own. Letting his finger linger on the window just that small moment to feel the wood under his fingers, Faraday smiled. As far as job accommodations went with their drafty warehouses, and weird backyard hole in the wall hideouts… no complaints.

The pool lay beyond the patio in front of his window and the earthy, herbal scent of weed drifted in on the warm summer night’s breeze as soon as he turned the knob.

Wait. He sniffed. Closed his eyes, sniffed again. Still, unmistakably, weed.

Faraday had to lean out the window to catch a full view of the patio and the lone figure that stood in the dimmed light, long and lean, his legs still in black slacks and silver-toed cowboy boots. Vasquez had gotten rid of the vest and like this, his linen shirt looked even more like something that ought to be dunked into the pool with him or gently tugged off his shoulders. The light from inside illuminated his body through the fabric, just enough to imagine. So far, so dreamy, had he not been furiously typing on his phone, face pulled into a storm cloud impression that put Emma Culled to shame, his lips curving into a snarl around the stump of a cigarillo.

Something was wrong with the way he stood, line of his shoulders tense, all weight resting on his right leg, all jerky motions and impatience drawn to the spot where he touched the screen, bright green flickering script on black ground not what Faraday expected see outside a tube monitor running on Win98.

“Puta madre!” The curse wafted up on a soft breeze, accompanied by a noseful of blue smoke that smelled of nothing but pure, strong tobacco and for a moment it looked like Vasquez just wanted to lob the thing into the pool.

Faraday already pushed back into the darkness of the room, the decision to go down made, before he had thought on it, when a second pair of footsteps hushed over the sandstone of the patio and with a flick of his hand, Vasquez’ slid his phone into his left gunholster, the right one occupied by one of his chromed colts.

Emma Cullen stepped out into the deep blue light beyond the porch, changed into a pair of jeans and a cardigan.

“Are you alright?” she asked, her voice soft and almost warm with unexpected care.

“Eh,” Vasquez snorted, then he shrugged. “Yeah. I’m good.”

She stopped in front of him and raised her right to his left arm, one eyebrow lifted with enough scepticism that Faraday felt it one story up. “You should consider the offer, Vasquez.”

“You pay? Because my credit card? Kinda tied up,” Vasquez grumbled, his teeth bared to her in a non-attempt to a smile.

“If I do, will you agree?” Emma’s sly agreement had Vasquez laugh under his breath as he flicked the cigarillo out into the night, a falling and fading star, long before it hit the grass.

“You’re playing a long game, Miss Emma,” he commented, his left brushing almost accidentally over the holster where his phone rested. Bad tell. In a poker game, he might as well just have folded. Though dear CIA-Emma didn’t seem to have noticed. “I don’t trust you.”

“I can live with that. Just agree.” She winked and Vasquez face split into a broad grin as he spread his hands in a gesture of surrender. Emma’s hand slid down Vasquez’ arm to his elbow and gently tugged him back inside.

“Stubborn woman! Let me guess…” They stepped out of Faraday’s sideline, only their voices lingering, with Vasquez rolling consonants a warm echo in the equally warm night. “...she works for the company?”

Faraday remained, the smell of weed still strong in the night air, and wondered.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now, first of all, thanks for reading this chapter.  
> I missed adding the end notes when I originally posted it because it was 2 am and I was half comatose. 
> 
> It proved impossible for me to not draw a few parallels with current events, especially since Red Harvest is a member of Comanche Nation and he, like every member of the First Nations knows first hand what it means to have our land taken without regard for law or basic humanity. The land on which this pipeline is built now has never ceded by the Sioux and according to the Fort Laramie Treaty is theirs, still. But the treaty was broken almost as soon as it had been signed because someone found gold in the Black Hills. 
> 
> Sounds familiar?  
> This is not just about water or a pipeline that people don't want build, this is about a recognition as equal human beings, as people with a right to their own land, a right to matter. Native Americans have the highest poverty rate and the highest suicide rate of all ethnic groups in the US. After hundreds of years of continued abuse, I think, it's time that this stops. 
> 
> Susan, my dear and beloved friend who keeps me on the line with Red Harvest, is Cherokee/Choctaw and this is something that is very close to her heart and to mine.  
> I hate to get all political on you, but every person, every voice, every dollar, every email to the people involved helps. Even if you cannot donate, or go to Standing Rock to directly stand with them, talking about it, being loud, explaining the situation helps them. The media is trying their damnest to just drown this thing happening there, the rubber bullets, the tear gas, the elders dragged from sweat lodges, but also the buffalo showing up out of the blue, golden eagles showing up and staying with them, the sheer, unimaginable bravery that indigenous people are showing as they are standing, bare to their bones against the greed that has already cost them everything.
> 
> You can do something to help them. Go here: [Stand with Standing Rock](http://standwithstandingrock.net/) and do something.
> 
> Thank you.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to the people who looked at this and made it better. 
> 
> Even specialer thanks to Eridani who always agrees when English is weird and still makes my stories better.

But, by God, they were a rambunctious lot. Less noticeable when they were all at the house, Faraday slamming doors like a ten-year-old that never learned to close them quietly and Vasquez cussing him out for it from another room. Horne who had a habit to pray and Red Harvest who had a habit to concentrate to loud music. Goody’s incessant talking and the incredibly loud silence that Billy Rocks brought.

Emma’s attempts at ordering that chaos usually only made it worse.

Now, after some time with all of them under the same roof, though usually not at the same time, Sam Chisolm stood in the middle of the silent entrance way and closed his eyes to a deep breath, truly noticing for the first time how loud it normally was. And how much it wasn’t now.

Smiling he turned towards the kitchen, the prospect of a silent cup of coffee a rare treat.

 “They all went and fled the premises?” Goody greeted him gently, his eyes lifting just for a moment above his laptop screen.  
Sam hummed in the affirmative and made his way towards the coffee machine. That thing had more buttons than his TV and though he at least could guess what most meant, the choice alone was daunting first thing in the morning.

“Red Harvest went with Billy to see if the CIA’s information on Bogue’s security holds out.” Sam did his best not to sound apprehensive but between all of them, those two had the most dangerous job for the moment.

“Billy will watch out for the young man, Sam. Don’t you worry. And though he might be the youngest, Red Harvest has an impressive record of his own.”

Sam snorted and turned. “And that’s supposed to reassure me?”

Getting to know him, Billy Rocks was even more disquieting than in the vague stories that inevitably trickled through the grapevine of the dreamshare community. But getting to know him also meant seeing how much he loved Goodnight Robicheaux and, former assassin or not, that automatically endeared him to Sam.

 With the coffee machine set on its task, Sam took the moment to eye Goody up and down as he sat at the kitchen table, dressed down to his vest, sleeves rolled up, at his arm a cup of coffee and a half eaten sandwich, and in front of him, his laptop. Once Goody might have stared bleary eyed at the universe through a haze of left-over whiskey, bitterly trying too hard to keep up the southern boy persona he used to deflect the world, his laugh too loud, his eyes too bright and his movements too jerky.

There was no helping the weariness that clung to him, a shroud he carried since his days as a sniper, nightmares etched into his soul like the scars of shrapnel that Sam knew littered his left thigh. Despite this, he held himself differently. At ease. At home once more in his body and his world and if he had a problem with the job, he had yet to falter.

“Well, I guess it is,” Sam grumbled and smiled when Goodnight answered in the like with one of his crooked smirks.

“You like him!” The smirk broke into a full blown grin. “Look at you, Sam Chisolm. You like him.” Goody’s voice trailed off into a softer note as he folded his hands to his chin and just looked at Sam with a twinkle of happiness in his eyes.

“He’s still an international assassin, Goody.”

“Ex.” Goodnight reached for his coffee with one hand, eyes never leaving Sam as he sipped.

Sam reach behind him, took his cappuccino, carried it over to the table to greet Goodnight with a smile.

They seized each other up and then they both started to laugh.

“So, how is Eliza?” Goodnight’s laughter faded to a soft smile, his eyes lingering on Sam for a moment before he went back to typing.

Sam sighed. Trust Goody to promptly take his revenge.

“Good as far as I know? She is dating a doctor, who Alex thinks is the most boring person on the planet.” Sam took a deep breath. “But this is none of my business since she left me. 3 years ago.” Sam ended on a note of finality, but trust Goody to not take the hint.

“She divorced you.”

“That’s what I just said.”

“No, Sam, you said, she left you. She didn’t, she divorced you.” Goody didn’t look up. “Will you be going to visit for Tommy’s birthday?”

“I planned to,” Sam said, looking away.

He knew he didn’t spend as much time with his kids as he should. Never had. “It’s five days before Bogue returns… we’ll probably be knee deep…”

“Careful…,” Goody cut in, his voice dropping into that deep drawl that got a man’s attention no matter what. “We both know what you see when you look at Agent Cullen. They are about the same age, even, aren’t they?” When Sam nodded, he sighed gently. “Just make sure we’re fighting the battle in front of us, not the one behind, Sam.”

The compassion in his voice, the bone-deep care that belonged to Goodnight Robicheaux like his Southern charm cut almost worse than the mangled steel had years ago.

Sam’s eyes flicked over, jaw clenched, eying Goodnight’s outwardly calm and collected form, typing like this was just another Sunday afternoon and he was doing his taxes. He hit the Enter key with a flourish and leaned back to look at Sam, only now and then glancing sideways at the screen.

“I assure you, we will be able to take care of and go forward with the preparations on our own for two days, Sam.” The corner of his mouth curled up. “Not even Mr. F….”

Joshua Faraday was neither built, not otherwise predisposed to be silent. As proven when he lumbered down the stairs and through the entrance, barefoot, in jeans and a washed out Guns’n’Roses shirt. With his hair mussed, eyes bleary, he looked like a college frat boy and not a man that some called the biggest Forging talent at the moment and all the rest called the biggest wasted Forging talent.

Goody snapped his mouth shut, his right hand slipping deftly over the mouse, the left curled protectively around the flash drive he wanted to plug out. With the unusual design of a classic polished silver cufflink, Sam would have bet a month’s worth of money that it had been a present from Billy.

“Good morning, Mr. Faraday,” Goodnight practically beamed at the man, his right fixing the cufflink to his cuff as if that had been the exact thing he had planned on doing at this exact moment.

Faraday stopped, stared at both of them, then he nodded with a soft grunt that was his approximation of ‘Good Morning’

“I thought you went with Emma and Vasquez to that ghost town museum? Research?” Sam asked, giving Goodnight a moment to roll down his right sleeve and fix the cufflink there too.

“Nah.” Standing in front of the coffee machine, Faraday stared and then, with a deep sigh, turned it on. “Dun need to be outa the house til 11.” He stretched noisily, his hands reaching far enough up to pat against the upper cupboards with ease. “Lunch stakeout of Mr. Harp, The Main Accountant (™). God, I hate this guy.” He grabbed his cup, sniffed once and then lumbered back out of the kitchen. “Goodnight, Chisolm. Later.”

 

***

 

Emma waited for Vasquez as he sauntered down the last step out of the inconspicuous townhouse, almost stumbling as he fixed his cuffs. For the most part, he was fine, had been for weeks. Once he had  gotten past the concussion and the hairline fracture in his skull it had been a waiting game for the shoulder to close. The graze in his side had barely registered then.

Now, though, everything below the shoulder, and that included his side, radiated starburst patterns of pain that sparked up whenever he so much as breathed wrong.

The grit of involuntary tears still crusted his lashes and stung his eyes. Vasquez had not believed he could still cry; they had just dropped from his eyes as the woman’s fingers had dug into his muscles deeper and deeper, past his sounds of pain and then pulled them smooth around the formerly fractured bridge of his shoulder blade and his barely knitted ribs, her only saving grace the fact that she had softly muttered in Spanish, promising that it was almost over.

After a look at the sutured wound at the front of his shoulder, she had just waved it off and muttered ‘two weeks’, sparing him this torture at least.

 

Sitting at the wheel of a cute little Ford, Emma handed him a cup of Starbucks when he slipped into the passenger seat.

Vasquez grabbed it, leaning back with a gentle huff. “Gracias.”

“Bad?” Her sympathetic smile widened as he rubbed his hand across his mouth and snorted into his coffee.

“Terrible.” His response in Spanish faded into the cup as he took a big sip, then closed his eyes and fastened the seatbelt. “Why did I agree?”

“Because you need full range of motion in your arm.”

From under half-closed lashes Vasquez noted with satisfaction how a corner of her mouth curled up.

She smiled too little and hated too much, but he remembered too well how it felt to need that hate to survive. Emma Cullen never asked him questions he wouldn’t answer and Vasquez, in turn, allowed her to meddle with something she _could_ change. Not unselfishly. He needed to make use of as much of this as he could. With his future and, more so, his past, having allies proved a rare treat, for as much as it was worth.

“Sí. Recuerdo, Miss Emma,” Vasquez smiled and he didn’t need to see to know her look, surprised and a little suspicious for his quick agreement.

“Today counts,” he changed the subject on another sip of his coffee as she pulled out into the traffic and turned towards the house. “You ready?”

“Oh yes.” Her voice practically vibrated with excitement and something deep in Vasquez belly answered in kind. They had found kinship in violence, fought highly tactical battles between the skeletons of Hollywood westerns before they got the details of the architecture sorted in long, coffee-filled nights and an abandoned town in the desert.

They had sat in the Imperial and drunken whiskey. Vasquez knew for a fact, just as he knew how the skin of the whores in the upstairs rooms of the Elysium tasted, that Emma Cullen had strolled through the streets with her husband at her side and shown off her perhaps best creation to date.

Sometimes, as Vasquez stood on the main street and heard the sharp whistle of the wind as it cut around corners, children’s laughter in the distance with the warm, dry air on his face and the smell of horses and dust in his nose, he imagined home.

Vasquez had added those details, how the grass felt under his feet, the smell, the feel of heat baked wood under their hands…

This and the tactical layout. The whole setup hinged on their ability to actually be able to defeat Bogue, and what Goodnight had dug up through his contacts bode badly for the militarization state of their target’s mind.

 

“You’re not a bad architect.” The praise at 4 am when they finally had emerged from their second building session had come reluctantly.

“I _am_ not a bad architect, Agent Cullen. It is why Chisolm hired me.” Vasquez had grinned and offered her a cigarillo or a glass of whiskey, but she had eyed both with disapproval and a certain amount of prim properness that could never be covered up by her more bloodthirsty side.

“Who trained you?”

In front of them the pool had rippled softly and above them, the smell of Marijuana had permeated the night from the room Goodnight and Billy Rocks shared. Expensive stuff, too. Very clean.

“I trained myself,” Vasquez had answered and hidden his face behind the smoke of the cigarillo.

She hadn’t asked anymore, just eyed him a little sharper.  He knew she had no way of finding out, not with what she had to work with.

 

Now she grinned at him, ready to wreak havoc on their unsuspecting team members, who, aside from Red Harvest  - their test subject - had yet to see the town and the sheer amount of violence Emma Cullen could incite with her projections.

 

***

 

Chisolm’s eyes widened a fraction as they snapped to a grinning Vasquez upon first closer inspection of the cardboard model they had built.

A long corridor of a street in direct view of the blackened skeleton of the church. And out in the open field, sheds, barns, a river and a mine.

“We thought dynamite might be a good idea,” Vasquez clarified the in-dream logic and Chisolm looked up once more, eyebrow rising.

“I’ve always wanted to blow something up!” Faraday exclaimed from the other side of the table, handsome face split into a boyish grin that lit up his green eyes. With khaki pants and a loose fitting button down in a very tame green, he looked outright cleaned up today, ready for work. And it had only taken him 5 days.

Chisolm and Goodnight both looked at him, doubting for a moment, before they remembered that before them stood a decorated Marine with explosives training.

“Alright, Faraday,” Chisolm conceded. “But maybe not today.”

He waited for Faraday’s nod before he continued.

 

“Gentlemen, this is a test run.”

Chisolm set both hands on the table and bend over the model, 9 pairs of eyes transfixed on him.

“One level, no deep drugs. Horne will do individual tests with each of you there. This is just to get a feel for the setting, for your partners and for your own personas. I’m not sure how many of you have already worked in Wild West surroundings, but I need you to remember that Bogue’s mind is highly militarized and cognisant of itself and its own inner probability. No Polyester. Reload your guns. This dream operates strictly within the confines of reality and while I know that each of you can easily break them, this is also a test if you are able to work within them.”

They all nodded, eyes transfixed on the small town sketched out before them and nobody looked, but Vasquez saw all bravado fled from Faraday, his face a mask of concentration, as he took in every nook and cranny of Rose Creek.

 _You’ll do_ , Vasquez thought and as if he had heard, Faraday raised his head to catch the last remnant of Vasquez appreciative smile.

“Teams:” Chisolm caught all their attention once more and began to tick off the setup. Goodnight stood as a silent shadow at his side, arms crossed, right thumbnail caught between his teeth. Vasquez wasn’t even sure whether he listened, though he nodded, ticking off his own inner checklist of a plan he had devised together with Chisolm.

“Billy, with me. I want you in close combat range right from the beginning.”

Goodnight nodded, Billy nodded and Chisolm dropped his finger on the pathway that led into town past the ruined church.

“Red Harvest, you’ll go high. Surveillance and close range sniping. Make sure nobody shoots _us_ in the back.” A clipped nod and Chisolm’s protégé tapped on a building adjacent to the Sheriff’s office.

“Goody…”

When Goodnight didn’t answer Sam nudged him in the side, worry fleetingly in his eyes, but quickly replaced by a drop of humor when Goodnight’s eyes snapped to him, sharp and self-deprecating.

“Sleep isn’t optional, Goody. You should switch it for work sometimes.”

Goodnight’s mouth twitched up and he shook his head. “‘Sleep, those little slices of death — how I loathe them.’” He reached out and tapped at an alley almost opposite the church. “I’ll be your fail safe.”

“Yes, you will be.” They shared a smile before Chisolm turned to Horne and gave him free reign to do as much damage as possible.

“And you…” He turned then to Faraday and Vasquez, who already eyed each other to Vasquez’ grin and an unspoken challenge in Faraday’s eyes. “You take up here and take care of everything that moves.” This time he tapped out a center and moved into a wider circle to encompass everything “Billy, Red Harvest and I should keep what’s concentrated around the sheriff’s office contained. You take care of everything else. Got it?”

“Sí.” Vasquez found Faraday’s eyes, excitement a warm burn in his belly, a snake waiting to spring into action, a joy to fight and to feel alive that he hadn’t lost with everything else. “We will so be good together, Guero,” he said and winked.

 

***

 

Moving silently with cowboy boots was damn hard. The wooden planks of the runaround porch were simply not made for people who just wanted to stroll casually around a house and not be noticed yet.

A short distance away Chisolm did what Chisolm did best, which was talking, but not even he could probably prevent all the street hearing their steps. Which left traipsing around on tiptoes. Undignified, but luckily, dignity had never been Faraday’s problem.

Billy, three servant’s steps behind Chisolm had neither problem. Dignified, deadly, dangerous and also silent as a cat, though that didn’t start with a ‘d’.

Snickering soundlessly, Faraday watched the man and his many knives, glad for every inch between them and even more glad that the man was on their side.

They said that in dreams, people inevitably revealed their true nature, that was what their business was built on, after all. If that was true, then they had all been very lucky, sleeping under the same roof with Billy Rocks for the past five days.

 

Across the street, Vasquez stood, feet shoulder width apart, fingertips resting on his twin colts. With his head lowered he looked like a literal cowboy in a high noon shootout, waiting for the flag to drop. Black pants with silver buttons running all the way up, silver studded belt and holsters. The same damn linen shirt but a vest in leather, not silk. And of course, a black cowboy hat.

He looked so damn right. As he raised his head, Faraday felt the dark eyes under the hat burning into him.

Down the street Chisolm slowly neared the crescendo of his little speech and Faraday jerked his head in his direction. Vasquez nodded once. They were on.

 

“...I can’t say the same for my compadres behind you.”

Faraday leaned against the gross yellow wall of a tailor shop/seamstress and let the adrenalin come. Rise like the floodwaters after a Hurricane up and up and up. The Peacemaker’s grip lay cold against the gentle caress of his fingertips, like a nervous lover, but not for much longer.

Vasquez slowly shoved a cigar between his teeth and lit it with relish.

 

“Quite a batch of strays,” one of Emma’s projections said, probably revealing her thoughts about the bunch of weirdos she suddenly found herself set up with. Though one had to wonder what her partner Vasquez had to say to that.

Anyways, what Horne said was funnier anyways, in his squeaky, breathless voice, like the remnant of a throat injury and his deeply ingrained religious fervor. It was hard to get an intelligible sentence out of the man. It was either science or bible, there was no in between where normal human interaction resided. Though he made a difference, it seemed for Blackstone Agents.

“I’ll say a prayer for you,” he forgave them in one sentence, chewing on a strip of beef jerky that he so often had hanging from his teeth in the lab, “A… a little p-prayer…”

The answer he got for such a polite and Christian offer was anything but.

“Man, you’ll make one hell of a rug.”

Not that Faraday hadn’t though the same already, but the difference consisted of being a guy who let the weird bear pump him full of drugs or a video game NPC.

“Yeah, and you’ll be murdered by the world’s greatest lover!”

Vasquez’ snort echoed all across the street, grinning lips stretched wide around the cigar, foot resting easily against the railing behind him. He looked like he had been born to be here, his left casually resting on a colt, radiating menace and the predatory hunting instinct of a true outlaw.

Interesting, in five days Faraday had never noticed that the guy was a lefty.  He needed to step up his game if he failed at something as obvious as that.

A gust of wind drove a small dust devil down the hard-packed ground of the street, the wood was warm against the touch of Faraday’s shoulder, a little rough. Rough enough that he could feel the fabric of his shirt catch on it. Above him, heavy footsteps drummed the wood of the balcony, rifle bolts sliding into place. One. Two. Right over his head. A forty-five degree angle to his right

 

A child giggled.

Faraday almost dismissed it in the haze of the low current of excitement that hummed through him like a promise. It could have come from anywhere. A trick, a trap of Cullen’s. There should be no civilians about.

Then Vasquez’ head snapped up, whipped around, down the alley where he stood.

Somewhere there, in the far back a little girl in a blue tunic skipped past, dancing through the one sunlit patch between the shadows of the houses while Red appeared out of literally thin air and knifed a guy off the roof behind Chisolm and shot another in the span of one second. He and the others had the projections well under control, which was the only reason Faraday allowed himself to keep an eye on Vasquez and the kid projection.

She had dark hair in twin pigtails and sun-touched skin, golden around the gleaming white of her smile.

Vasquez’ hand, the left, slipped hesitantly from his colt and that was the exact moment, of course, when Chisolm lit the fuse and the fireworks started.

Faraday’s first shot went off, almost before he knew it.

Vasquez swiveled on his heel, colt in his hand but in no way could he see the guy behind him taking aim. Or be fast enough to shoot before the bastard got him. Faraday pointed his offhand weapon with not a hairsbreadth to spare and pulled the trigger.

The guy fell. Vasquez finally finished that turn and in a flurry of motion - shoot - fan the hammer - shoot - fan the hammer - took out his would-be killer’s friend.

And shit… Faraday was good with guns. He had practiced with the colts in the previous days, but this was some next level shit of someone who used colts all the fucking time.

Didn’t mean, Vasquez was faster or a better shot. But he looked damn good doing it. All the style points to the outlaw.

 

A bullet zipped past Faraday’s head, close enough to cut the air by his ear, only a second before he broke the shooter with his gun. Permanently.

Down the street, three men fell. Good thing that Chisolm wasn’t just an FBI agent, but also a prolific killer. Next to him, two fell to Rocks’ knives and nobody’s surprise.

The guys on the balcony above Faraday finally gathered their wits. A shot sounded. Somewhere near Sam, a post got a new hole. Faraday fired once. A scream.

He fired again. Two bodies dropped.

 

Both Chisolm and Rocks disappeared into houses on their level of the street, Horne left behind to deal with a projection on his own. Brutally so. That guy had some pressing anger issues to work through with the help of the Lord.

Rocks left a man nailed to a post with one of his pigstickers.

Across from Faraday, a guy ran out of the Imperial, gun in hand and his eyes set on Vasquez. He fell to one well-placed shot.

Vasquez nodded in acknowledgment of Faraday’s help and sprinted towards the next house, leaving his back for Faraday to guard.

He did. Twice with just as many house entrances that Vasquez cleared. The man was damn good, methodical in his own, murderous way, moving with the grace of a hunter and the single-minded focus of someone who had been shooting people for a long time.

 

Three shots from Vasquez, one from Faraday. Time to switch guns.

He had no idea where the others were, only Horne’s crazy ass prayers breaking through the crack of the shots.

And Robicheaux, guarding the mouth of the Mainstreet, his rifle resting jittery against his shoulder. No shot fired. Even if, with the way his body quivered, he wouldn’t have hit the church that filled the whole width of the street across.

Fuck, Faraday, cursed, to no one in particular. No One would hear anyways.

The door of the leather store crashed open and two projections ran out, their sights not on the fight down the street, but towards the saving open land. Where Robicheaux stood.

The first charged headlessly ahead, gun raised, finger curled around a shot that went wide.

Faraday killed him without thinking. The second, he missed. To Faraday’s right, Vasquez’ colt went off and the guy slid off his horse. The third was Faraday’s again.

Vasquez moved towards the middle of the street, loading both his guns as he went, his trust in Faraday strong enough, that he didn’t wait for confirmation.

In the distance a child giggled, he jerked, but this time didn’t look up, face drawn into the equivalent expression of a balled fist. Only when he was done, both of his colts in his hands now did Faraday slip out, into the protection of his partner’s back to reload himself. Back to back, in the middle of the street, the sun bearing down on them. Wild West as Charles Bronson probably hadn’t dared to dream.

Vasquez radiated heat, the scent of dust and clean sweat, gun oil, cordite and cigar smoke. He couldn’t smell more male had he bathed in motor oil and single malt scotch, probably, and Faraday thanked his whore of a mother that she already had used up the family’s supply of Irish-Catholic guilt and freed him to enjoy that moment of undiluted pleasure.

Faraday breathed deeply, plugging cartridges into the cylinder. Five. Six. Switch. One, two.

Vasquez colts barked, a body dropped, a horse cantered by. A calming hum Faraday’s sign to take his time.

“Es bueno,” he imagined hearing before he nudged Vasquez' shoulder and they broke apart once more. Robicheaux still stood, a good distance away, rooted to the spot and shit, Faraday had seen this expression before. Incident Nr. One in Kandahar. A fellow marine, a grenade.

He had acted without thinking then and it had landed him with a commendation and a ticket into the dreamshare program.

This, though? Not his problem. Nobody was going to die if Robicheaux got shot. Nothing bad was going to happen, except they’d all see that their pointman had a big damn fucking problem.

Shame, really, so far he’d made a good job.

 

Vasquez sprinted across the street, ducked under shots from inside the bank. Faraday’s ability to give cover severely hampered by the angle. He tried anyways. It was the last hold out at their end, everything else had already fallen to them.

 

With his back plastered snuggly against a post that just so covered him, Vasquez pulled his second gun. So… ambidextrous, not a lefty. Though with a clear preference. Faraday looked at him and nodded. Whatever Vasquez did in there, out here, Faraday had his back. Goodnight ‘I’m useless in a gunfight’ Robicheaux standing around like Lot’s wife re-enactment or not.

Vasquez confirmed with a shit-eating grin and kicked in the door.

Two shots later a guy jumped out of the window, desperate to get away, but there was no escaping that man. The third shot was his.

And that was… silence.

Faraday watched the outlaw cross his street, twirling his guns like a damn prancing show pony, both, then individually, before he holstered them, eyes scanning in every direction until he was damn sure there really was nothing left to kill.

Not bad for an architect, even one who had helped build this scenario and had an unfair advantage to the rest of them.

 

A lone horse galloped down Main Street, straight at Goodnight, straight towards freedom. Faraday let it pass, let the rider flee and moved towards the man instead, talking, before he arrived.

“Goodnight, take the shot.” He tried, damn it he tried. It was so obvious, so damn obvious. As soon as the rifle touched Robicheaux’s shoulders, the wild tremors in his body calmed, yet he did not, could not pull the trigger.

“Take the damn shot!” Sometimes it was just overcoming that one, first hurdle, sometimes, it was just a moment. “Goodnight...take. The. shot!”

Please, Faraday added in the silence of his mind. Do not make us lose our point man in the middle of a job.

Goodnight lowered the gun with a visceral wave of pain radiating from him, his eyes hitting Faraday just as Smith’s had. He had no time to find anything clever to say, to pull his tongue from the twist of disappointment before Billy Rocks stepped between them and grabbed the gun.

 

30 feet away Sam Chisolm stood, Vasquez by his side, saying nothing, doing nothing, just looking on.

Looked, like he knew.

 

They met back where it all had begun, at the Sheriff's office, Vasquez and Chisolm already waiting with Horne lumbering out of some building, reloading a revolver, Faraday swore he hadn’t used.

How many you get?” Chisolm waited for them to come close enough to ask, scanning the buildings around them for more trouble.

“I got five,” Billy said, Goodnight behind him suspiciously silent.

 

“Six,” Faraday called ahead, dropping empty shells along his path.

Red chose that moment to appear literally out of thin air at Chisolm’s side, painted face and all. Faraday jerked back, his movement covering Goodnight’s flinch.

“Hell, don’t do that!” Faraday hissed. “That’s… weird. For all involved. Jesus, Red, what’s wrong with you.”

The kid just grinned and shoved his bow back into his quiver. But good to see that the guy was able to have fun, at least.

“What’d you get?” Faraday asked in Vasquez general direction, which might include Red, though Faraday expected no answer from this front.

Vasquez looked up, face serious.

“Six,” he stated, hands digging in his pockets for more bullets.

That was…

“Err, seven… I got seven.” Faraday amended and turned towards Chisolm, holding up his fingers for emphasis.

Vasquez scoffed although he had absolutely no right to it.

That one guy had absolutely probably already been shot by Faraday before Vasquez got him and also, who had saved that cheap sheep herder’s ass when he went spacing after projections right in the beginning…

And that projection had to have been Vasquez’. No one else had been near and with the way he had reacted….

Their eyes met. Vasquez, too, remembered.

“Wanna try and tie it up?” Faraday brushed his fingertips over his gun, too much adrenalin in his system. Forget the others. Vasquez’ attention centered solely on him and yeah, those were fucking mahogany eyes. They narrowed. No hesitation.

“Say when.” Vasquez stepped half a step closer. “Where.”

Faraday’s mouth curled up.

Chisolm rolled his eyes and turned towards Goodnight. “Let’s get out of here.”

 

***

 

At 3am Faraday chugged down half a bottle of water, followed by two cans of Red Bull. At four am he flung the file against the wall and rolled out of his bed, cussing a blue streak.

Accountant Harp, personal number cruncher for Bartholomew Bogue was not an extraordinary person, except in all the ways he was so ordinary.

He was nothing but an anxious, utterly boring nothing. He couldn’t be worse and harder to copy if he tried.

In all the time Faraday had watched him, had listened in to his conversations, all the lunch dates, all the times he had covered the man’s way from work to the bistro he ate at and back, Harp had dropped one personal detail. ONE.

He was too busy for a pet.

That was it. His personality consisted of numbers, ledgers, account, taxes and Bogue’s will. And when Bogue said ‘I don’t want this taxed’ Harp found a way to hide it. Not, because he liked the thrill or the challenge, the rush of doing something illegal. No. Martin Harp feared Bogue too much to not do it. And that was the most interesting that was there to say about the man.

He never left his routine but also didn’t stick to it slavishly enough that it translated to a personality feature. Martin Harp was the human equivalent of gray sludge with anxiety.

He was also small, saggy, looked like a man with three adorable grandchildren that loved him dearly and smelled of caraway and sauerkraut.

 

Faraday needed a triple espresso.

As his momma’s boss had always said: Joshua Faraday was not made for learning and that Harp seemingly had based his whole existence on the fact of counter account transaction hurt Faraday in ways that not even the US budget under Bush could fathom.

The only things he ever needed to understand were people.

 

He stopped at the bottom of the staircase, long enough to let the cold of the marble floor seep into his toes, pondering whether to use the kitchen coffee maker or the one in the basement command center.

The kitchen was huge. Every sound doubled and carried throughout the first floor. Loud coffee machine. Inferior coffee. Also: first floor and him in his Killer-Tomato boxershorts. Chances for detection this time of night, with everybody asleep: minimal. Yet after pondering the numbers he came to the conclusion that only one person was likely to get up and confront him if he let that monstrosity grind beans now. Billy Rocks was also the last person he wanted to encounter while in his underwear. Not the right outfit to die in. Not the right time to die.

Game room.

 

He hadn’t yet cleared half the stairs when his assumptions came to a stuttering halt. Not everybody was asleep. Faraday saw the light first, then he smelled the heavenly scent of freshly brewed coffee, then he heard the rapid-fire patter of a notebook keyboard.

Speaking to Goodnight ranked not exactly high on the things he wanted to do in the middle of the night, not tonight. He’d leave that special pleasure for Chisolm to sort out and keep his head in his part of the game. Lucky him that Goodnight wanted to speak to him even less, probably.

 

Not Goodnight, though.

“Mierda!”

A dull thud, a deep growl and another row of curses that only ever sounded so romantic in Spanish.

With a five second time frame to decide for understated elegance and professionalism or being the guy with fanged tomatoes on his boxers, Faraday turned the corner into the room, hellbent on just ignoring the man in favor of caffeine and also, he was still pissed at him.

A little.

“Ey…” Vasquez’ low baritone rolled softly through the empty room the moment Faraday’s foot touched the rug. “You ok, Guero?”

There might be stronger men on earth, able to resist their remedial architect at 4am, dressed in slightly rumpled black slacks and an equally slightly rumpled linen shirt. He wore his bling and he wore it well, even at the unholy hour adorned with belt, holsters and a pair of shining silver cufflinks gleaming in the soft overhead light like a pair of jewels.

It looked perfect with his slightly darker stubble and desperate hairstyle of someone who should have slept hours ago. Didn’t Faraday know all about that?

“Whatcha doing still up?”

In front of Vasquez sat his laptop, his sleek S7 edge next to it, a weird USB cable dangling unplugged over the table edge like a forgotten toy. Goody’s laptop stood for once pushed aside, one lonely blue light blinking the sad morse code of all abandoned machinery.

“Checking some details about 19th-century gold mining equipment.” Vasquez ran both of his hands through his hair and yawned. “Nice shorts, by the way .”

His lips twitched and, after a not really subtle look of Faraday towards his can of coffee, he pulled one of the used mugs close that littered the table at any given time of the day. Probably the only one in their motley crew who was not hopelessly addicted to that stuff was Horne. Grizzly Adams drank nothing but filtered water and green tea.

“Thanks. A classic of the genre.”

Vasquez' eyebrows held a story of doubt and a touch of fear at that, but he shoved the cup across the table towards Faraday anyways.

Faraday grabbed it with a sloppy thanks and crawled up onto the couch, because why the hell not. The back was much softer to sit on, the cushions so much gentler to his feet. Also, Vive la revolution and so on. Vasquez’ gaze had a moment longer to linger before Faraday turned around again and caught him at it.

“You know…” Shimmying his behind on the soft ground little before resting his arms on his knees, Faraday searched Vasquez gaze. “Reckoning from what I saw of you in the fight… I thought you’d shoot better in a duel.”

Vasquez heaved a slow breath and shook his head and gently closed the computer.

He let the silence stretch, eyes fix to the spot where the screen had been before he turned back.

“Do I need to apologize?”

“Dunno… being shot in the lung hurts like a bitch when it doesn’t kill you, you know? I at least gave you the courtesy of a clean one.”

“Sí, you did. Very good shot,” Vasquez said with a smile and leaned back in his chair, long legs stretched before him, hands folded on his belly.

The shadows under his eyes seemed deeper in that position, his smile almost vanishing among the scruff. He seemed darker, yet somehow…

“I apologize, Guero. It will not happen again. Next time, I promise a kill shot.”

...earnest. He seemed earnest as if he genuinely regretted leaving Faraday behind to off himself.

“Huh.” Faraday paused. “You’re a lefty, right? That’s why that shot went wide?”

“Sí.” Vasquez shrugged. “And it didn’t go wide. It hit center mass. You just took your time dying. Too stubborn.”

“Oh so, now it’s my fault that you suck at duels?” Faraday kicked one of the plush pottery barn pillows at Vasquez’ laughing head, who predictably caught it. That guy at least had as much of a military background as any of them.

“Guero… I have been in my own share of firefights, but high noon duels? That was my first.” Vasquez' lips curled into a slow promise. “I will do better in the next.”

Faraday had never not seen Vasquez in his stupidly dapper clothes, looking like the Mexican equivalent of a Savile Row billboard, but, thinking of it, he had also never seen him not slouch, lounge or lean comfortably on anything like a promise for sex that just happened to walk into the room.

“Oh, so I popped you dueling cherry?”

“If you insist, Guero,” Vasquez laughed, head thrown back, the strong column of his neck stark against the white of his shirt. Something warm uncurled low in Faraday’s belly, something that he sometimes forgot existed, a faint longing, a hunger that stretched awake far more gently than the sudden explosive need to drag a conquest from yet another cheap bar. One he mostly ignored.

But then, this was a job. They did their job and went home. Vasquez back to whereveer he had come from and Josh Faraday would vanish somewhere with a lot of poker tables. Where was the harm?

“Do it again tomorrow?” He asked and chugged down the last of his coffee, slipping off the couch with far more confidence than his clothes should allow. But if Vasquez didn’t mind… and the way Vasquez’ eyes lingered, he didn’t mind at all.

He held out his hand for the cup, light glinting off the smooth polished square of his cufflinks.

“It is training, no?”

“Sí,” Faraday confirmed and pulled his fingers back the millisecond before they touched. “Training.”

Vasquez’ “Good Night” followed him upstairs, brimming with low laughter, mirror to Faraday’s grin that held up until he closed the door to his room. He cast one look toward the bathroom door he shared with Vasquez and face palmed.

“Get a grip, Faraday.” In the silence of his room, the words sounded just a little too loud, a touch too intrusive. “The man unironically wears polished cufflinks at 4am. That’s not…”

Martin Harp stared at him. A professional picture, taken by Bogue Industries and pulled from their website. It had slipped out of the folder earlier. Dark gray suit and vest, light pink shirt, conservative tie. Clothing like the man.

Clothing made a man.

Vasquez liked bling. He liked his jewelry ornate, old silver, engravings, subtle sometimes, but never plain. That plain understatement was more Goodnight’s…

“SON OF A BITCH!”

Where a warm glow had just wormed its way through his body, cold took over faster than Faraday could grab his guns off the table. Just fast enough to stop him from actually opening the door.

Yeah so, those were absolutely Goodnight’s cufflinks, one of which doubled as his flash drive if Joshua had listened right the morning he walked in on him and Sam. That had been absolutely Goodnight’s laptop in standby on the table and no Faraday had not checked the obscure “19th-century mining equipment” excuse.

That would have been more Cullen’s field of expertise anyway, but she and Vasquez seemed joined at the hip, so chances were, their resident CIA agent was in on whatever this was.

Was Goodnight? Probably not. He took the whole thing too seriously or he wouldn’t have frozen that afternoon.

Vasquez…

Faraday kicked Mr. Harp under the desk, happily abandoning the idiot to the waste bin for now.

Last he’d heard of Husseini the man had been off the grid for weeks somewhere in Sweden on a job and Saubert had wrapped his car around a tree half a year ago. But Vasquez was not a new babe and though he might not be at the top, someone knew him. Someone always knew him.

While his laptop booted, he reached behind and grabbed another Red Bull. Mixed well with Adrenalin.

That fucking son of a bitch!

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, this took a little longer. The kink meme prompt happened and real life. Someone got me to play Overwatch ;) Blame them. 
> 
> minor warning for short memories of torture and, of course, drug use in a medical setting.

„..and I knew, if I had my chance….“

Billy stared straight ahead, ignoring the wry smirk of the young man at his side, his curious glance at the music blaring tinny out of Billy’s five Dollar headphones. Though there was no escaping the image they presented in the elevator’s gleaming doors. Two men who worked menial jobs in spruce blue overalls armed with a cleaning cart.

Red Harvest’s foot thumped out the song’s rhythm on the red carpet as his lips moved softly around the words.

“Nervous?” Billy asked, eyeing Red’s hands, folded defensively in front of his body, his slumped shoulders.

“Nah.” Red’s lips twitched into the ghost of a boyish smile. “I’ve done worse in the army.” Billy raised an eyebrow but Red didn’t elaborate.

“We need to be quick about it, before Vasquez’ cleaners lose their nerve,” he said instead

Vasquez’ guys were two Mexicans that their architect had paid a hefty sum in exchange for their company car and work clothes. Maybe that was the reason, Chisolm had hired him. It paid to have someone speaking Spanish in LA. Maybe it was because Vasquez moved between all this, the preparations, the cheating, the infiltration, with surprisingly confident ease.

But then, so did Red Harvest.

In the beginning, when Billy and Goody had gone over their team members, doubt had sat heavily on everything.

Red Harvest appeared, aside from his army education, woefully inexperienced. Faraday was a drunk and a gambler. Vasquez a Mexican expat who didn’t bring the architect accolades for the job. Horne, a crazy doctor and Emma Cullen a grief-stricken widow with unproven mental stability. And then there was Goody, a brilliant pointman with occasional reality problems.

 

In the last week though, one thing had become clear. Chisolm had an uncanny knack for people.

Red Harvest, Chisolm’s faithful sidekick had chosen that role for himself because it gave him the privacy to observe the world from his mentor’s shadow, undisturbed by other’s attention. He was good at that. Shrinking away from the limelight, bowing into a smaller role and using that advantage to its fullest potential. He had slunk through the grand foyer of Bogue Inc. without anybody so much looking at him. Had there been an archetype of a cleaner, the man always there and never noticed, Red Harvest would have been it at that moment.

 

The elevator pinged to a stop. Billy restarted his antique iPod. Red’s lips curled.

“A long, long time ago…” Billy looked at him and started to sing.

He followed Red and the cart outside onto the lush, well kept executive floor that was also mostly deserted at lunchtime, aside from one lone secretary at her desk outside Bogue’s door filing her nails.

“..I can still remember, how that music used to make me smile….” Billy took two steps into the plush, dark blue carpet and startled to a stop, attention all on her.

“Oh, I… I ...sorry.” Once, a few years ago, Billy would have intentionally played up his accent until the words were twisted into something barely intelligible for the sake of the job, a harmless, stupid man, barely able to understand the language. Nobody had given him a chance to factor personal pride into his work until he had almost forgotten what that felt like. Now, Billy let the vowel roll a little easier off his tongue, let the cadence flow into a different melody, exaggerating only gently for the sake of a little show.

“I thought everybody were at lunch.”

He hadn’t needed to do this in years. Couldn’t say he’d missed it either.

With her blond hair pinned in fine curls up her head, her eyebrows plucked to machine precision, beautifully contoured make-up over artificially bronzed skin, she looked every inch the perfect, American doll. Perhaps former Miss something, come to LA with high hopes and in the end glad, she’d ended up where she had. That didn’t make her a bad person, only a successful survivor and, as she now  smiled at him, a woman probably bored out of her mind as replacement secretary while her boss was gone oversea and had taken his preferred little helper with him.

“No, it’s…” she smiled. “It’s ok, you have a beautiful voice.”

“He sings all the time,” Red Harvest cut in from the back where he just walked out of the toilets with waste buckets in his hands. A broad smile on his face, he looked right at home.  “Be glad it’s not K-pop or something.”

“Ey!” Billy groused and their new friend laughed lowly behind a ladylike covering hand.

“I don’t know enough about k-pop to judge that.”

Red emptied the waste bins and turned back with quiet efficiency, like he had done this a thousand times.

“It is not bad,” Billy admitted and rolled his eyes at Red’s back, praying to the gods of secrecy and infiltration that the kid would remember that this was for show once they left the building “Can I come to your side…”

He gestured around the desk, to her waste bin. Some people perhaps might believe in the paperless office, but for 99% of the American reality it was a myth. A lot of bosses believed in screensavers and shredders, but their employees did not.

“Yeah, sure!” She moved aside, giving Billy access to her side of the desk, her waste bin, her note pad.

“Erm, excuse me, ma’am?” Red called from down the corridor, perfectly on cue. “I think that door is locked and I can’t find the right key. I’m sorry.”

He held up the frankly impressive key ring, that went with the job and gifted her with a beautiful, helpless grin. Billy snorted as she hurried down towards Red Harvest and called up her outlook in two quick clicks, her calendar, Bogue’s calendar and his manager’s and bodyguards’ calendars his for the taking. Billy had never believed in overly fancy plans, he simply pulled out his iPhone and filmed, as he made his way through her data.

Another thing that people believed in where screen filters. Those worked splendidly… below an 80° angle.

“Where are Juan and Angie even?”

“They erm…” Red’s voice wafted from the now open room. “Flat tire. It’s nothing big, but they couldn’t make it on time for the lunch break and we were in the area.”

Billy had seen the kid killing remorselessly, projections, granted, but nobody got that good an aim or neatly a hand with a knife without experience. Yet here he was, charming the shoes of that girl, more proof of Chisolm’s brilliance with people. Billy would have disputed Red Harvest’s Forger classification to the bitter end.

 

Billy carried her waste bin over to the cart and emptied it into the bag they had marked for “search later” and for a moment pondered if he should try and get Red Harvest to switch mentors.

An interesting thought but ultimately nothing but that. Red Harvest wouldn’t leave Chisolm and if he had a chance, Billy preferred to not bring anymore murderers into this world.

Around his neck, Don McLean lamented about the store that wouldn’t play his music anymore and Billy thumbed back to the beginning of the song before he dragged the vacuum out of the cart. He plugged an earphone in, plugged in the vacuum and started singing.  

 

***

 

 **To:** Farababy

 

 **From:** Schneewittchen

 

re: Vasquez

 

Hey sunshine :)

 

Asking after a Vasquez is like trying to find a Müller in Germany, dearest.

There’s like four in Spain alone, though maybe not at that level. Biggest names I know are a chemist in Buenos Aires, an architect in Europe and a pretty great pointman somewhere in the States. Rumor has it those last two are related, but they have some bad beef between them. Enough to always keep at least one ocean or Russia between them. Because, remember, in Russia dreams share you.

 

Greets, Snowwhite, missing her favorite dwarf.

 

***

 

“I still don’t understand why I can’t test with them,” Faraday grumbled from the couch where he sat with his convertible on his knees, scrolling through the news.

“Because,” Billy answered from the lawn chair where he just taped a needle to Vasquez’ arm, the urge to snarl for just a moment strong enough to break free, “you have an alcohol habit and this is a medical test to see whether the drugs are safe.”

“I don’t have a habit, God dammit!” Faraday’s gaze shot over the screen in front of him to Billy.

“Well? When was the last time you had alcohol, Mr Faraday?” Billy baited him, pushing his buttons, just to see what Faraday was made of, to get a clearer sense of their Forger who seemed to be a crinkled, cheap paper wrapping over something more that he hid very very well. People who hid things that well were people he didn’t trust. And that included Vasquez, as his words proved when he interrupted them.

“Four days,” he answered calmly, “after the successful test. When we all drank.”

They both knew too much and saw too much, covering it up with flashy personalities  and, in Faraday’s case, annoying habits.

Now though Faraday narrowed his eyes, staring at the grinning Vasquez.

“Are you watchin’ me?” Faraday sounded like he was trying very hard to be mad, with limited success.

“Would you like that, Guero?”

Red Harvest, on the other lawn chair, rolled his eyes. “I have seen you drink, Faraday.”

That drew laughter from all of them, even Horne in the far back at their chemist table.

“Let's give your liver a day off, yes?”

Faraday snorted and threw his computer on the couch. “Alright, at least give me something to do. Heartrate monitor? Oxygen?”

Billy pointed to both and the responding cables next to Red Harvest. He himself was hooking up Vasquez.

“Be careful, little Red Riding Hood, ok?” Faraday murmured to the younger man, barely audible as he was attaching the cables with expert care, contrary to his self styled, antagonistic image. “That the big bad wolf doesn’t get you.” He grinned and squeezed Red’s shoulder, getting up. “If the drugs even work on you… remember..I have seen you drink as well.”

Under Billy’s hands, Vasquez' chest vibrated softly, laughter caught behind tightly pressed lips.  

 

***

 

The sleep sequence went off without a hitch, both men’s vitals working along beautifully as the Somnacin and all the little helpers they had mixed with painstaking care, did it’s job. Despite Faraday’s token protest, Red Harvest and Vasquez truly were the best suited, the fittest and the youngest, not even the wound Vasquez  kept hiding from them could change that.

The clock slowly ticked down from ten minutes and three minutes in, the stable pattern of their pulse had yet to change.

Faraday had retreated back to the couch and his notebook, reading in silence without so much as a glance at Horne, who monitored the actual bio data or Billy who checked the PASIV.

By now, they all had gotten used to Vasquez habit to go under with a gun in his hand, the same they had gotten used to Horne’s native woven blankets covering the lawn chairs, for comfort as much as for the doctor’s superstition. God knew, Goodnight had enough habits for all of them, clinging to the fixed points of his reality with sheer desperation. That somewhat negated Billy’s base for judgement.

Though he always reserved a little for special circumstances and persons. Sam Chisolm might not be a bad man, he had proven to be a good leader so far, none of that meant that he had any right to involve Goodnight in this job.

If he expected to be greeted with politeness or friendliness as he poked his head through the door with a nondescript smile, Billy didn't bother.

“Everything going well?” Chisolm asked with a glance to their sleepers.

“We do our best and hope for the best,” Horne supplied and Chisolm’s smile dipped to the side of painful.

“That is good, Jack,” he said, in lieu of anything else to say and turned towards the couch. “Faraday, a word.”

And with that, he was gone, leaving Faraday to stare at the door, indecision written all over his face. A glance to Vasquez and his gun, another to Red Harvest before he slammed his tablet shut and stood.

“Well, can’t be more boring than this,” he quipped as he marched out, passing close enough to the clothing rack that he bumped into it, almost stumbling against the door.

“Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger resides in the lap of fools.” Horne looked on mildly when Faraday closed the door behind him and went back to his screen.

Billy followed Faraday’s gaze to Red Harvest, then to Vasquez, nerves at the back of his neck prickling. A quick touch to assure himself that the hairpin was still firmly seated in his hair, then Billy moved around a table to Horne’s side.

He almost missed the violent jerk Red Harvest gave in the corner of his eye. The heartrate monitor beeped a warning.

 

“Heartrate is climbing,” Horne informed him and Billy rushed back to the PASIV.

“Eighty and rising steadily. They were not supposed to do anything strenuous!” A faint whiff of panic vibrated in Horne’s voice, a deep well of memories, and Billy just shook his head, pulling the third, emergency line from the PASIV.

Vasquez' heartrate monitor signaled a warning.

“I can’t kick them from here. I’m going into the first level.” Billy sat on the floor, already tapping at his vein, when Horne’s voice jolted him out of it.

“Stop!” Horne jolted out of his seat, turning the laptop as he went and rushed towards the sleepers.

Red Harvest’s Pulse was at 90 now, Vasquez' at 86. For two men who fell in the 60-70 range in calm that was far too high, especially since they were supposed to be in deep dreams.

“Lord hand me strength.”

Billy looked up as Horn walked past, his fingers reaching out to Red’s shoulder where a deep, dark bruise was forming. He barely touched it before he turned to Vasquez.

Billy found it, a red streak that cut like a vicious scratch across Vasquez' lower left arm, steadily moving down from the muscles at his elbow towards his hand.

With one glance at Horne’s clenched teeth, Billy threw the cannula back over the PASIV and rolled to his feet, crossing the distance to Vasquez’ lawn chair in two strides. He snatched the gun from Vasquez' hand the second Vasquez shot up with a cut-off scream. Their hands brushed on the handlr the moment before Vasquez closed his fingers around empty air.

Behind them, Red Harvest gasped in pain and jerked awake into Horne’s hands.

 

They hadn’t dimmed the lights, keeping the overhead LEDs as bright as they allowed and, in the cold light, Vasquez' dark eyes rolled like a spooked horse’s for exactly two seconds, then he forced himself under control, breathing deep, leaning into Billy’s hand as he pushed him back onto the blanket.

“Los Angeles,” Billy murmured. “Bogue job. Basement. Drug test.”

Vasquez’ gaze latched onto him, eyes wide and terrified, and nodded jerkily, once. On the monitor his pulse peaked at 97 and then it slowly, steadily fell.

“Red Harvest,” Vasquez croaked and tried to look past Billy’s shoulder to where Horne stood bent over the second lawn chair. Red Harvest’s pulse beat steadily at 104 beats per minute before it, too, began to fall.

 

Under Billy’s hand, Vasquez’ heartbeat thrummed against his sternum, the pallor to the bronze skin not just a result of bad lighting. And it wasn’t just the terror either. Billy took his hands off Vasquez’ chest and watched the man relax visibly before he lifted his left arm to look at the deep red scratch on his skin.

“Hrmmmm,” Horne’s voice sounded from far too close, over Billy’s shoulder and the big man turned and lumbered away, leaving both Vasquez and Billy staring after him with equally unhappy expressions, Billy shaking his head the only commentary on the doctor's unintelligible mumbling.

"I think I know what this is. I expected something. Our actions have consequences."

Red Harvest groaned lowly and Vasquez' head snapped over at once. “Hey kid, you ok?”

“Congratulations, Vasquez, you have the most vicious projections I have ever seen with anyone…”

Red Harvest slowly pushed into a sitting position, the bruise on his shoulder coloring midnight blue.

Vasquez' lips twitched into a wolfish grin. “You insisted on going invisible in broad daylight.”

He made no attempt to sit, happy now to lay his left arm across his belly to ease the strain and let Billy handle the needle in his right arm.

“Friendly, Vasquez,” Red Harvest snapped. “Do you know that word?”

“Oh, I do… my projections? Eh… they protect me after all. Come back to my dreams a hundred times, then maybe you can run around and paradox your way through my dreamscape.” He snorted. “I have no three strikes policy.”

Their banter, much less angry than Billy might have expected was cut short by Horne’s return. He carried a tray and on the tray two big cups of hot cocoa, from the smell of it and two ice packs.

“Poltergeist syndrome,” he wheezed in his broken voice. “Extremely rare.”

Horne dispensed both cups and the ice packs. “We had it now and then in the early times, with the early mixtures.”

“And what is it?” Vasquez pushed into a sitting position, too, pulled the blanket around his shoulders and curled around his cocoa, ice cradled between his body and the ‘injury’.

Billy grabbed his abandoned cup of coffee and settled in to listen.

“When your mind sinks into a state of great aggravation or meditation...no...”

Horne stopped, thought, started again. Much to Billy’s annoyance who, at all times, preferred clear, directly spoken words. With one notable and rather poetic exception. Horne was not it.

“Have you ever heard of Eleanor Zugun?” The doctor looked at the three of them with hopeful expectation written across his face and deflated only a little when all of them shook their heads. “Ah well, maybe a bad example then. Anyways… she was an illiterate Romanian girl and one of the best documented early poltergeist cases of the 20th century. But that is…”

Horne waved off his own words, took the ice pack from Red’s shoulder, studied the injury and put it back on.

“One phenomenon with Poltergeist cases is oftentimes injuries that the victims sustain. There is a theory that these injuries are actually self-inflicted, but…” He held up a finger as Vasquez wanted to cut in. “...not by outside force. Similar to stigmata it’s suspected that these injuries are an extreme form of placebo effects.”

Like one man Horne’s audience raised their brows.  
“Yes, yes, I know...it boils down to ‘to believe is to do’. If someone believes in globuli they will have at least a perceived positive effect, especially in pain levels. You feel it in your dreams when you are injured.” Behind Horne, Red Harvest cut a dark glance at Vasquez. “You feel the pain. But this is more…. You go so deep, at the deep end of two levels down, that you touch on your subconscious.”

“And that tells the body that the injury is real.”

Billy rubbed a hand over his face. “But they are just bruises, nothing dangerous, correct?”

“Correct.” Horne smiled. “Normally, injuries need to be present for at least a few minutes before they take effect and massive injuries kill a dreamer much faster than that.”

Vasquez scoffed. “And death has the normal effect.”

Billy eyed Vasquez arm warily. He knew a knife cut when he saw one.

“So, we can assume, the test itself was successful.”

“Obviously,” Vasquez threw in with sarcasm dripping voice. Red Harvest chuckled.

“Yes,” Horne, the actual recipient of Billy’s question nodded enthusiastically. “Though we might need to minimally tweak, maybe to alleviate the effect a little. And for…”

He trailed off when Billy’s narrow eyed stare hit him. “Yeah well, we’re not all young and lively anymore, are we?”

Billy got up and walked over to Vasquez without deigning Horne’s evasion with a comment and dropped the colt back into Vasquez’ outstretched hand.

 

***

 

Faraday stared at the phone in his hand. It didn't relent. ‘please enter pin’

He had done well enough with the pattern drawing. Vasquez was not exactly secretive with that.  This explained why. That fucker.

For a moment he pondered just fucking it up until Vasquez had to pull out the master pin, secrecy and caution be damned. In the end he went for the SD cart.

That, too, required pin activation to copy the files. It did not, as a friend had once assured him when he had handed him the nifty little helper on Faraday's comp, to make an image.

Not that Faraday could access the image, but he could damn well find someone who could.

 

“Mes amis and mishamigos,” he pushed the door open with grand gesture and turned until he kinda hugged the door frame, his left hand as if by accident, landing on the clothing rack. “The grand jury has decided. We are having Mexican for lunch. Complaints? No? Great. Later!”

Only when he was out the door already did the looks of the men filter through, Vasquez with Horne’s blanket wrapped around his shoulders, Red Harvest clutching a cup in his hands and a cooling pack to his shoulder.

He wanted to ask. He wanted to know. Except, his chances of actually getting info were close to nil. Chisolm one the other hand…. That was his business anyways.

He went to find the evil overlord.

 

***

 

 **To:** J.Faraday

 **From:** [S.Meyer@Meyer-Luebbe-security.de](mailto:S.Meyer@Meyer-Luebbe-security.de)

 

J. Vasquez

 

Why J.?

LOL. because Europeans start to cry when someone's named Jesús. but I have no info on any relatives. sorry, man. Now, about that stash....

 

***

 

Billy found him asleep and sprawled across the bed, naked except for a pair of black Armani briefs that said more about Goody as a person than maybe even his favorite suit did.

Billy shrugged out of his shirt and threw it over the bedroom armchair. With the temperatures as they were he needed to change anyways before lunch. He would have been lying if he didn’t admit, even to himself, that the test had not made him sweat. Neither Red nor Vasquez had wanted to talk about what happened in the dream with Horne and Billy was not the person to ask. Still, he wondered. Projections where his daily bread, especially aggressive projections. So, Vasquez had a highly militarized mind. Shame that he would not let them test him.

Under his knees the mattress dipped, jolting Goody into a stir and a smile.

“Hey.” He stretched without opening his eyes and Billy caught the searching hand in his for a kiss.

“Hello,” he murmured across the knuckles and then dropped the hand onto the bed to bend over his lover and catch his face in his hands. Five years and a dirty bar in Arizona, a bunch of homophobes and two men who both wanted an end to their previous lives and found it there, in that bar.  

In the shadowing frame of Billy’s arms Goody looked younger than his years and experiences, unspeakably innocent. Happy.

Billy brushed his hand over his lover’s hair and a kiss across his lips.

Goody had finally fallen asleep at five am, bleary eyed and desperate for just a moment of rest and finally, the dreams had stayed away. Now his hand slipped up Billy’s back and shoulder, curled around the hairpin and plucked it out of Billy’s hair. The strands tumbled down around both of their faces and Goody, satisfied with the knowledge that he was awake, opened his eyes.

“Do I need to get up?” With another stretch Goody wrapped his arms around Billy’s shoulders.  Do we?”

“We do. You should eat,” Billy chuckled and stole a soft, sleep sweetened kiss.

“Work?”

“Lunch. In a while. Cullen just ordered.”

“Enough time then to refresh.” His soft lover’s smile flipped into a suggestive grin. “Care about a shower, mon cher?”

“Ten minutes,” Billy warned, but already pushed back off the bed and headed for the bathroom.

Goody followed slower, idling time away with the attempt to tame his bed head. The fingers of his left still tightly curled around Billy’s hairpin.

“It is not the minutes we are given on earth, but the minutes we make count.” He added with a wink and dropped the pin just inside the bathroom door, before shucking his briefs.

 

***

 

"Edible?"  Emma asked with a smile towards Vasquez, as she watched him pour some red sauce over his food from a bottle he steadfastly defended against Faraday's wandering hands with a calm "No, Guero." in the gentle  tone of voice reserved for children or the dog.

Vasquez hummed a thoughtful response with a careless shrug and broke a piece of the hard shell off his taco and shoved it into his mouth.

“Eh.. you know,” he said, a spark in his eyes. “I love American tacos. I do. Just wished someone called them what they really are.”

“Which would be?” Goody, dabbed his mouth with a paper napkin, hiding a smile behind the gesture. Vasquez eyes crinkled with mirth, catching the attention of everybody around the table for the big reveal.

It came with a sad little sigh from the Mexican as he broke another piece out of the hard bread. “Not tacos.”

He took the laughter around the table like a king accepting his due, saving his bottle from Faraday once more with one hand, using the other to eat his scorned foot.

“Well then, Vasquez,” Chisolm spoke up when the ruckus had died down. “Would you do us the honor to introduce us to real tacos, then?”

Vasquez shrug with his right arm and smiled. “When this is over, we did a good job. Yeah, I might.”

“Speaking of which….” Sam took a healthy bite, chewed, then put his food down. “Teddy went over the data you and Red got us…” He nodded to Billy and took the returning nod with a smile. “it's practically impossible to get to Bogue in his office or his home.  Not without involving his bodyguards and we should avoid Denali and McCann at all costs. But...Mr. Queens?”

Teddy nodded slowly and tapped a sequence on his tablet and turned it for all of them to see.

“I correlated Mr. Rocks’ data with several sources we have had access to in the past and it looks like the planned absence the weekend after Bogue’s return corresponds to a pattern that's been going on for more than a year.” Teddy looked up, at each one of them until Emma spoke.

“He does that regularly. Usually he goes to meet at his hunting lodge with his favorite prostitute. It’s an open secret but the visits are a so irregular that we haven’t been able to use it yet.”

“Do we know where that cabin is?” Vasquez interjected and opened a fresh bottle of beer against the corner of the table.

“On a private property in the mountains, very remote.”

“Well,” Goody cut in with a crooked smile. “That makes it rather easy for us, doesn’t it? Bogue shows up to his date, spends some time with his lady....

“And we can grab him with his pants down,” Vasquez completed the thought, toasting the point man.

“Maybe not exactly with his pants down, though.” Chisolm, too, had gotten himself a bottle of beer that he nursed with languid patience.  “We need to take the involvement of a civilian into account.”

“Before?” Teddy asked. “After?”

Faraday rolled his beer bottle in his hands, staring at the table top, then to Red. “On the road.” His eyes narrowed as his gaze swerved to Teddy when Red nodded.  “What car does Bogue usually drive?”

“A...a Porsche.”

“A Porsche?” Red leaned over to get a better look at the tablet, even went so far as to reach over and scroll down. “Oh, a Cayenne. Security model. That one can take a lot of damage. I mean, we want him injured, but not that injured.” He smirked at Faraday, ignoring a few surprised looks from the others. “If I am thinking what you are thinking.”

“I really...really wanna see how that car fares against an IED.” Faraday sighed. “Though a straight shot probably works better and a lot less conspicuous.”

Half the people at the table looked at Goodnight, who raised his hands in defeat. “When he's leaving. He will not let the prostitute stay at his house. He is far too suspicious. That should give us all the privacy we need.”

“So, we nick him off the street. Offer help, drug him, pull him under.” Faraday commented, obviously pleased.

“Or he dies,” Emma interjected.

“And nobody’ll be sad about that.” Faraday finally snatched Vasquez’ bottle in his somewhat fumbling attempts at pick pocketing and turned it to read the label. “Damn, all in Mexican. How hot is that stuff?”

Vasquez watched him for a moment, almost fond. Then he reached out and took the bottle back. “You'll hurt yourself. Trust me.”

“Oh, I DO trust you.” Faraday smiled with distinctly more teeth than necessary. “I'm just curious.”

Chisolm cleared his throat from the other side of the table.

“We post someone posing as construction crew to block the road that leads past Bogue’s cabin and tell anybody who might come by to take the long way round for additional privacy.”

Vasquez leaned back, beer bottle set against his belt buckle and tilted his head.

“How about… we want him found by people, right? We need this to look just like an accident, nothing to see there for anybody to get any ideas. I suggest our men pose as members of the Sheriff's office? Will gather less attention in the long run.”

All round the table people nodded. Chisolm smiled. “People will expect to see law enforcement in connection with an accident and thinking back, it all will appear just as it should be.”

“Do we have someone?” Goodnight asked and deliberately turned towards Emma, not even hiding the fact that he expected her to say yes.

She did. “I can ask.” She smiled. “And I think we have someone, yes.”

“We have a plan. We have a date. Gentlemen, it is a pleasure working with all of you.”

Chisolm grinned as he spoke and raised his beer bottle. Faraday snorted with a glance to Vasquez, his own smile slow in the face of the Mexican’s grin.

But even Billy smiled.

“We can take a look at his house, while we’re at it. He’ll be out. We can set it up in a way that any disturbances can be blamed on law enforcement looking for next of kin, if we tread lightly. Check out the safe. See what we can find?”

He raised his eyes to Chisolm, issuing the challenge that hung between them since day one. Chisolm smiled and raised his bottle in silent salute, his eyes fixed on Billy as he went on. ”People like Bogue, they have a front. The business checks out 100% right? So, of course, he’d keep his illegal activities contained to an offsite location.”

Emma nodded. “Obviously less secure than his main offices, used for fun only. So of course nobody would come looking. Surveillance much too complicated for the little time he spends there.” She broke off and looked at Chisolm. “Damn! How did we miss this?”

“You are too honest, Miss Emma.” Vasquez laughed.

Faraday next to him leaned back, unconsciously mirroring Vasquez’ pose while he shoved half a handful tortilla chips into his mouth and crushed them noisily. “So, if I go get Bogue in the dream with Sheriff Harp… is this still on the table?”

Chisolm nodded, eyes narrowed curiously and Faraday wiggled his eyebrows like a stage magician gearing up for the big reveal. “I will go and get him from his “home”, right? Ima gonna drag him from his safe place to OUR safe place.”

“Yes.” Now Faraday had everybody’s attention. “What are you playing at?”

“This safe place will be colored by his real world safe place, so maybe I can get some glimpse of stuff that helps us. Number combinations, interior. You can use those, right?” He turned to Vasquez. “To get us in?”

“If you get it for me, Guero, I can use it, sí.”

Sam released a slow breath as a smiled spread across his lips, his hands folding around the beer bottle.

“Very good, Mr. Faraday.” He nodded. “Very, very good.”

 

***

 

 **To:** J. Faraday

 **From:** [ bm250338@buffed.id ](mailto:bm250338@buffed.id)

 

re: the Saint

 

Srsly, Faraday? A Val Kilmer movie?

I've heard of Vasquez the architect. not made for greatness, that one, but solid. His brother, though... HOLY SHIT. Cayetano's bigger in Asia than in the US, rooting many of his jobs through Hongkong. Last I heard though, he was dead.

 

Cayetano btw totally is a saint, some Italian dude. I looked it up. Patron of bankers and gamblers. :D

Shame. That might have been a partnership the world wanted to see.

 

***

 

The door clicked and locked shut in Vasquez’ back and cut off the others’ laughter with blessed finality.

Silence.

They all still sat downstairs, bent low over maps and the murder wall as Faraday so aptly called it, their laughter echoing through the house even with a whole floor between them.

Rose Creek no longer looked the pristine beauty that Emma and Vasquez had created. Emma already had had included all the little injuries of the shootout but this afternoon they had gone and altered the remaining landscape itself.

Working by hand in a dream was rarely done these days, architects drawing from the plain material of the dreamscapes to raise them prepped and loaded from their imagination.

Had been nice, and fittingly, Vasquez felt as sweat soaked and dust covered as he had been in the dream, a faint echo of different days of his life that clung to him long after waking.

Pushing away from the door with a low laugh, Vasquez took off the cufflinks and the belt as he went, dropping them along with his phone as he passed the desk.

 

Emma loved how he added details, sometimes working them into the maze with his own hands, shoveling dirt, sawing planks.

To her it was a curious little habit, an interesting way of anchoring the dream into both their consciousness, with the added benefit of greater stability. One reason they had all of them work their way through Rose Creek, fortifying the fabric against the onslaught of Bogue’s training.

Vasquez, of course, didn’t tell her that this was how he had learned to do it, alone in the cheapest motels between the Mexican border and Portland, with a bunch of unreliable information pulled from the internet. And from there, onto a plane to Barcelona with nothing to his name but a PASIV and a shitty job he had found on the dark web.

Next came the vest, the boots kicked haphazardly in front of the armchair. Dino socks. Littlefoot. He smiled. His favorites, reserved for difficult days. No matter how long the way, how difficult the path, in the end… there existed a spot in the world where it would be ok again.

As far as philosophies went, it was neither deep nor elaborate, but it had kept him going when his mind had just begged, screamed and pleaded him to give up.

 _“How long do you think will it be, til your mind decides that we have reached a level of torture that should by all means kill you, Vasquez? Hrm?”_ Second level, torture. And fuck that, Machner was as crazy as he was good.

Vasquez remembered that vividly. He dragged the shirt over his head, dropped it over the chair, followed by his pants and turned towards the desk, towards his notebook.

 _“Shhh, Vasquez, baby. You’re safe. Just tell me. Talk it off.”_ First level, sex and pillow talk. Cooking him soft, pulling him off. Riley whispering sweet nothing into his ear while she promised him safety from the screaming horror of his dreams.

Booting the laptop and the tablet both, Vasquez plugged his phone in and dropped into the high-backed chair.

No more work today, he promised himself. Just checking emails real quick. A look at his mother’s facebook for the rodeo results. Maybe a fleeting glance at the message boards and probably yet another assurance to the Swiss that he would come by as soon as humanly possible to reconfirm his accounts. Whenever he managed to cross the US, EU and Swiss borders without alerting Interpol to the fact. So, maybe never.

But he was not yet desperate enough to concede defeat and try to hack his way to access of his own money. He had other accounts, even other, well secured accounts that Riley, that cheating, conniving, murderous bitch had no way of getting into.

Because he had never trusted her. The sex had been great, for all of the 10 months that it lasted, but even before they had scaled back to a strict business relationship… he had always known. Her mockery of his ‘paranoia’ had been one of the reasons he had dumped her months ago.

She had always cared too much what others thought of her, played to their whims, unlike Faraday, who couldn’t care less. As proven by the stark honesty of the tomato-shorts-incident three days ago. They hadn’t managed to get back to training the day after and something about that had annoyed their Forger mightily, his irritation like an idle little spark just under his skin, waiting to catch fire.

Riley would have hidden it, would have played it nice and sweet and then struck from behind when the target of her ire was at the most vulnerable. Faraday hat shot him. Brutally. It didn’t get more honest than that. Vasquez had delivered a clean kill shot, as promised, and had he been that last fraction faster, Faraday’s shot would have gone wide instead of catching Vasquez in the gut, throwing him into screaming, endless agony until Red had shown mercy and put a knife to his heart.

_“Hey, it’s ok.”_

Vasquez watched the BIOS sequence tick by, tapped enter when the machine asked for his preferred boot partition, clicked out his password without so much as a glance.

_“I got you, V. I got you.”_

Red’s hands holding him down. A glint of sunlight on steel. Blessed darkness and he had shot up swallowing a scream for the second time that day, greeted by Faraday’s big hands and the honest safety they promised.

They had been alone in the basement, Emma and Red still under. Vasquez’ hand had squeezed the grip of his colt until it hurt and the faint touch of glee in Faraday’s eyes evaporated in the face of the reaction Vasquez had been too slow to reign in.

Warm fingers had dug into Vasquez’ upper arms, emotions flickering through Faraday’s eyes like colors on a disco ball but before he could say anything, Red had woken and startled them apart.

Not Faraday’s fault. He had no way of knowing how much wounds like this rattled Vasquez, how little he could stand the thought of helplessness, had even before this latest mess.

He poured himself a glass of scotch.

The only mail waiting in his semi-private account, the one reserved for friends and good acquaintances, came from Portugal, Stephane’s greeting as sloppy as ever.  Vasquez could basically see him, sitting on the veranda of his house on the cliffs, café au lait at his elbow, watching the sun rise over the Atlantic. The man could be one of the best architects in dreamshare, instead he did two, three jobs max a year and idled the rest of the time away, designing zero eco footprint houses and drinking Bordeaux.

Vasquez smiled for all of two seconds.

“Hey J. Man,” it read, “Why is an American Forger sifting through all his European contacts, looking for info on you? And what kind of info do you want him to get? Ring me up when you're in Lisbon."

Short, precise, no politeness wasted.

Vasquez turned his head to the right, to the bathroom door and beyond, Faraday’s room. In the silence his heartbeat drummed overly loud, galloping through the sound of panic.

He pushed away from the desk, grabbing the cigarillos as he went, one between his lips and lit the moment the window opened. The first drag past the knot in his throat hurt. He needed it to.

Needed to feel reality trickle in through his body. Pain on the second level. Pleasure on the first. Screams of pain and Spanish curses. With a vicious expletive, he tore his amulet over his head, ignoring the painful yank as it caught on his ear.

The Archangel greeted him, wings and sword raised.

Vasquez sagged against the window, drawing a second lungful of smoke, slower this time, mindfully aware of the calm the tobacco spread through his body, the way his pulse slowed.

Goody’s cufflinks. He snorted. It had been a last second save, switching them out when Faraday had stumbled into the basement in the world’s most ridiculous shorts and a body that put Michelangelo’s David to shame.

Faraday. The stupid idiot.

This explained so much. His prickly attitude. The looks Faraday had cast Vasquez and Red this morning. The warning he had given Red before they went under… chillingly appropriate in hindsight, but damn it, Red had just been stupid and with a mind as ultra-militarized as Vasquez’, stupidity just didn’t fly. Better he learned that now before he got them all kicked on the op.

And in hindsight, too, it was painfully easy to see the sheer anger in Faraday’s eyes during the afternoon session. Oh, he had hidden it well, flinging a few jabs at Red Harvest and the Slurpee he slurped, crouched leisurely on the railing in front of the saloon, taking full advantage of the more peaceful nature of Emma’s mind.

So yes, Faraday had likely missed on purpose. Punishment for Red Harvest? A test? Vasquez licked his lips. A game?

He wondered if Billy and Goodnight would share their stash of weed. 

The silence dragged around the slow rhythm of Vasquez’ breaths and the smell of burning tobacco. With the silence stretched the span between his heartbeats.

 

But really, what could he find out?

There was nothing left worth burying, thanks to Riley. And the true secrets, the ones Vasquez would take to his grave….

A child giggled at the outer seam of his consciousness and his thumb rubbed slowly over Saint Michael’s medallion. No matter how much his own projections tried to stab him in the back. That wouldn’t happen again, the hole in his defenses thoroughly shored up once more.

 

So, Faraday was pissed and he didn’t care to hide it. He went at it maybe not full confrontation but not all smiles either. Unlike Riley.

Vasquez stubbed the cigarillo out in the ashtray and walk into the bathroom on his Littlefoot socks, the door opposite his a mocking invitation to just do his worst. No light, no sound from the other side and the flimsy lock beckoned him more than it deterred. He could boot up Faraday’s cutesy little convertible and have a trojan installed in five minutes. Access to everything. His emails, the nudes he uploaded into his dropbox, his data, his sexting on WhatsApp. Everything.

He could. Find what Faraday had on him and tear the rest apart.

His hand stilled an inch from the doorknob.

 

***

 

The fine spray of the shower prickled of the electric fizzle of nerves that spread in little circles all under Vasquez skin. The low grade burr hum of his keyed up heartbeat, just this side of the border to an anxiety attack. In the background Bach wafted through the warmth of the room, doing his best to calm Vasquez agitated mind with as much success as he normally had… a surprising lot.

 

Shuddering through a long, slow breath Vasquez closed his eyes and took a very conscious step back from the ledge, his face raised into the spray. He remembered the concern in Faraday’s eyes as his calloused hands had wrapped around Vasquez face, anchored him until he caught up with reality. The way his abs rippled when he laughed. Banter over a bottle of hot sauce. Vasquez should have let him have it. Seriously, just should have watched him cry through it and then offered him a glass of milk. Faraday’s grin, green eyes sparkling with his eyebrow waggle, begging people to give him their attention. “The world’s greatest lover.”

Vasquez laughed, hands pressed against the smooth glass of the shower stall.

And then, once more, Faraday’s hands. The smell of tobacco, of strong coffee and cologne clinging to his skin, the warm weight of them against Vasquez jaw, the moment of an almost touch around a coffee cup.

 

Back to back in the middle of a street. Two shots in quick succession. The Blackstone agent behind Vasquez falling…. The way Faraday had _looked_ in that moment, colt in his hand, eyes narrowed as he scanned the street, a prowling predator, for all his loose limbed grace and cocky posture.

Vasquez’ breath hitched as his fingers skimmed down his front, caught on a nipple in a soap slicked glide and then deeper, rubbing over his belly, just to touch, to feel how his stomach muscles clenched in anticipation and then deeper still.

Fuck, he was hard already, thinking of a guy who probably wanted to murder him and would, waiting only for the moment he knew what Vasquez was up to.

Bach swallowed Vasquez low moan, the slippery slide of his hand grappling for purchase against the glass, the soft crinkle of the waterproof bandage rustling in time with his rhythmic strokes, his palm curling slowly around the head of his cock, foreskin sliding back to reveal dark skin, blood cursing through his veins, driving him faster, faster.

Vasquez gritted his teeth and squeezed. Twentyone, twentytwo. The suds swirled around his feet, dancing on little water currents in the hypnotic dance of a soft piano. He released his grip, rubbing his thumb across the tip of his cock, breathed and then slowly, leisure began pumping his hips into the tight grip of his fist.

Faraday’s hands, Faraday’s body as he moved through the streets of Rose Creek, perfect ass hugged unspeakably tight by his pants, Faraday shooting people, Faraday’s freaking eyes as he caught Vasquez, steadied him and then turned and stalked away.

Vasquez grit his teeth around the quickening puffs of his breath, closed his eyes and opened them right away, finding himself in the mirror, scarred body curled around his hand, searching for the one spot… the one spot, the right moment to fall when everything shattered and he could….

His groan echoed too loud in the intimate space of the shower, knees buckling under the sudden strain.

“F...uck.” Vasquez turned the vowel around before he could say what really had been on his mind, evidence too incriminating even for the privacy of a shower jerk off.

“Shit,” he added and listed to the side until his shoulder rested against the corner, hot water still pounding on his back, soaking deep into now much more receptive muscles. “Shit.”

He remembered Faraday’s smile as he had sat on the couch, ridiculous boxers and all… and yeah...

Bad idea.

 

***

  
Hola Stephane,

 

just tell him I love Ben & Jerry's peanut butter and need him to supply me with at least one cup a day and that I need a bottle of tequila ritually sacrificed during the full moon to stay among the living a while longer.

I got the situation with the Forger handled. You keep your head down before Riley remembers that I like you.  

Greets, J.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while. Job has been crazy. And then I slaved over edits for five days because I'm a horrible perfectionist. I hope to get the next none out much fast, depending on how much Overwatch binds my attention ^^
> 
>  
> 
> I want to not just thank, but outright dedicate this chapter to my beloved friend Eridani. She is not only a beautiful person with a razor sharp mind, but also a dedicated friend who puts up with way too much of my shit and takes time out of her family vacation to beta my fanfiction. She listens to me whine when I'm lonely and follows my fickle attention span from fandom to fandom with nothing more than an easy smile. She is a literal ray of sunshine in my life and deserves only the best and I hope she'll always get it. I hope she'll find fulfilment and joy in whatever she does ;) Because she plain deserves it. 
> 
>  
> 
> **A warning in advance:**
> 
>  
> 
> There is a sexual practice in this chapter that is slightly unsafe. Albeit possible, it's strongly recommended to not do it this way, or only do it with someone you trust with your life.  
> Always remember, kids: Lube and preparation are your friends. 
> 
>  
> 
> Additional warnings: 
> 
> minor mental breakdown  
> unsafe sexual practices  
> drug use  
> mentions of fratricide  
> mentions of death of family members  
> alcohol
> 
> Please let my know if I forgot anything

It was three am on a warm summer night, the water of the pool lapping gently against the stone of the terrace, blessedly cool in the sweltering heat preserved within the slabs.

Someone had had the brilliant idea to light the water in deep blue tones straight out of discovery channel docus and then contrast it with the soft earthen tones of the open living room on the other side of the veranda. Interior design perfection. The kind of house that you swindled yourself into, chugged down the most expensive whiskey in a hurry and vanished before they noticed that you were actual trash. Nevermind that Faraday could perhaps afford a house like this if he put his mind to it and less time in the casinos, he - himself, not a mask or a Forgery - would stick out in that living room like a pile of dog poop.

The smell of coffee didn’t register at first, didn’t register, embarrassingly, until Vasquez had already stepped onto the terrace, two pots in hand.

“What are you doing here?” Faraday snapped, before the professional part of his brain had a chance to raise its hand and tell him, he was stupid. His fingers moved of their own accord on his phone to close the file that detailed what little data his contact had been able to salvage from the SD card. Absolutely outrageous Triple Town scores, among a few snippets of probably work related files.

_“I could explain to you why this is so hard, but trust me, Fara, this is a hacker’s work and he’s good.”_

 

Vasquez stopped, cocked his head and an eyebrow, his gaze scanning Faraday without heat, nothing but polite restraint and maybe, just maybe, a faint flash of hurt. Faraday had to give it to the man, Vasquez was good, so good in fact that he almost fooled a man whose whole livelihood it was to read, judge and understand other people.

“I brought…. coffee…?” Vasquez’ lip curled into a little smirk, laden with meaning. “You’re working late again,” he added unnecessarily in his stupid black slacks and that stupid linen shirt without the stupid vest. How many of those got he even? A gleam of finest silver glinted at his wrist; a hellishly expensive watch that screamed, even in this much of a state of undress, ‘look at me, I’m a posh.’

Faraday rubbed his eyes and dropped Harp’s file, actual work and not just an alibi, onto the concrete next to his sunbed.

“Black?” he asked and was rewarded with a toothy smile.

“As the devil’s soul and enough sugar to sweeten the way to hell, Guero.”

Faraday took the cup.

So what, Vasquez knew how he liked his coffee. Whoop-dee-fucking-doo. Useful knowledge if he ever wanted to poison Faraday. Sad coincidence that Faraday was too desperate at the moment to care.

“Forgery not coming along well?”

Faraday breathed the sweet bitterness of perfectly brewed coffee, studiously not watching as Vasquez lowered his rangy body and his freakishly long legs into the other pool chair, and said three very choice words to sum up the situation.

What could it hurt? There was no way that Vasquez could use this information. So, their Forger tries to imitate your accountant but he gets mediocre results at best because his life was never normal enough to enable him to relate?

“It’s passable, I think,” Faraday responded and leaned back, the warmth of the coffee pulsing in little shocks of heat between his fingers. “But I completely fail at grasping the guy’s motivation. Just pray it won’t come up.”

“Does he have to have a motivation?”

Vasquez took a sip from his own cup, mostly foamed milk with just a dash of tar at night, and so yeah... Faraday made sure to know everything there was to know about Jesús Vasquez and it was so fucking depressingly little. Even after he had found people who had worked with him in the past, the picture remained elusively incomplete. Capable, likable, not too hung up on legal matters most of the time, dreamshare seemed to be a bit of a family thing, liked Ben & Jerry’s. A blank slate, no motivation, no core of his person that Faraday could grasp. Just like Harp.

“Everybody has a motivation, even if it’s nothing but the wish to exist in contentment. Everybody has unfulfilled dreams that beckon on the horizon. Everybody has relationships!”

“He has family, does he not?” Vasquez twisted on the hard surface of the sunbed until he had curled his body onto its side, coffee protectively placed in front of him, eyes fixed on Faraday.

“Wife, three children. 5, 10, 13.”

“Lived in San Franciso but he moved them to….?” The lines in Vasquez’ forehead deepened as he tried to remember.

“Fresno,” Faraday narrow his eyes. “How do you know?”

He knew of course. The reason for all his troubles. And wouldn’t it be nice if Vasquez just admitted to his snooping?

“I read the file. I was curious.”

No, not like this. Faraday desperately wanted to roll his eyes in the face of that innocent smile. Hopeless.

“Then… Got anything useful to add?”

“I’d say he does it for his family. You can get many men do anything if you make it ‘bout their families. He visits them, right? You saw them? They look uncaring?”

“No,” Faraday admitted and rolled onto his back, the cup set onto his chest. “He and his wife had dinner and it was sickeningly sweet. I just…” He looked over to the man who watched him so intently, a smile, not a smirk lingering in his eyes. “If he loves his family, he wouldn’t leave them alone for weeks on end, coming home twice a month and for important dates, would he?”

Vasquez' face softened as he shrugged and covered his face with another sip of coffee.

“Would he bring his family close to Bogue?” He smiled, once more coyote sharp. “You were the one who said Harp is driven by fear.”

“He’s a coward, yeah.”

“Except for his family.” Vasquez injected and something in his voice had Faraday listen.

“How far would he go for them?”

“I don’t think he’s the guy for murder exactly… but as long as they are happy?” One corner of Vasquez' mouth curled up, though the humorous light that came so easy to his eyes stayed dead.  “He is the one making the sacrifice.”

Faraday stared up into the night sky, his eyes only able to pick out the biggest stars, the formations a mystery to him. “I’m not really good with family stuff. No father and all that jazz..”

He felt Vasquez eyes on him, the heaviness in his gaze, and immediately wanted to take his words back.

“Lo siento, Guero.”

Vasquez words hung in the night air, bitter like pity and Faraday had already drawn the breath for something scathing when Vasquez continued. “My father died two years ago. I was in Germany at the time, extracting the location of a dying millionaire’s testament for his children. Our last talk was a phone call, he barely could speak anymore.”

“Does my mother’s pimp count?” Faraday grated.

Silence. Vasquez blinked once, more slowly a second time. “See him as a father?”

“Nah,” Faraday took a sip of his coffee and allowed himself a small smile at the taste of money that wasn’t his dancing over his tongue. “I hated ‘im.”

The gaze on him never wavered and Vasquez’ eyes stayed just as soft and warm, even as he clucked and shook his head. “No, he doesn’t.”

Faraday snorted and washed it down with more coffee.

“But you said, you worked him out alright.” Vasquez’ sonorous voice mixed all too well with the sound of the water and warmth of the air.  “Is it a big part of him, maybe? Yes. But does it define him?” He let the question hang in the air, let Faraday draw his own conclusions.

Although his attempt at comfort was as pathetic as his metaphor was obvious.

Looking over, into the smiling face of a predator that seemed so oddly soft in the indirect light shimmering up from the pool, Faraday stuffed the warmth bubbling in his belly back down where it belonged, behind the suspicion and the fact that Vasquez cheated at Triple Town.

“Alright, hobby psychologist. How about we dump you off to Chisolm and free Red from the clutches of the establishment to learn how to be a real Forger?”

“Only trying to be helpful, Guero.” Vasquez chuckled and changed the topic as smoothly as a freight train. “So, you take Harp, go to Bogue, tell him to come to Rose Creek. You know what you’re looking for in his haven?”

“Numbers, words on pictures, hideaways, mantle pieces...yeah.” Vasquez nodded but Faraday continued. “I can’t promise you anything, though. Bogue’s the guy to just shoot the messenger.” He shrugged.

Vasquez looked at him, dark eyes in the shadows as he dipped his head just a little bit, something drawn tight around his mouth, visible even through his carefully maintained scruff. "Or torture him for fun. Make sure you bring something to kill yourself if need be. That deep down, injuries have physical consequences and it hurts like a bitch.”

“Yeah,” Faraday’s eyes slipped to Vasquez’ arm behind the shield of his coffee, still hot and bitter sweet, thick on his tongue and just on this side of too disgusting. “I heard about that. Fun times.”

This time, as someone approached, Faraday heard it, his head snapping up in time with Vasquez’, but it was only Emma, who stood in the understated elegance of the living room, dressed in a man’s button down that reached to her thighs and watched them, red-rimmed eyes lost and empty.

Before Faraday could filter the image, Vasquez set down his cup and rolled to his feet in a smooth movement. “Perdon, Guero,” he said. “I’ll be back.”

It sounded like a promise and assurance to Faraday - who needed it the least - as Vasquez went and folded their resident CIA spook into his arms.

Faraday drained his cup and stood. Emma’s low sobs needed no audience, least of all him.

 

***

 

Smoke.

The scent of charred wood and cold desert scent. Gun oil and the loving pressure of cold metal against his trigger finger. Calmth. The knowledge of capability.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Let the shot surprise you.

The target turned. Sam’s face stared at him, confusion, pain in his eyes.

Goody screamed, pleaded on a long drawn out “Nooooooooooo.” even after the bullet had stamped a hole between the other man’s eyes.

Darkness. The sweaty warmth of another body curled up against his side. The hot imprint of a hand on Goodnight’s stomach.

“Shhhh.” Billy’s voice, his breath hot against Goodnight’s ear.

Goodnight gulped down a choppy gust of air, forced his lungs to expand just a fraction past the pain of locked muscles. Enough air to press out the words lodged in his throat.

“I shot them, Billy! I shot them….”

Billy sat.

“It was a dream, Goody, you’re fine. It was a dream.” He never needed to raise his voice above a whisper between them, his words cut through the confusion and the terror with single-minded precision.

“What if it isn’t, one day?”

With anybody else, Somnacin inhibited their ability for natural dreaming. Goody had never stopped. Oh sure, it had dwindled but it had never ceased. Instead, with time,  they had taken on the life-like clarity of lucid dreaming under Somnacin.

With a heave he twisted to the side and grappled for the flask on the nightstand. The cool metal slipped between his fingers before he could find a hold on the leather wrapped around the middle and it clattered down the nightstand to land on the plush carpet with the dull thud a body made when it hit the ground.

“Billy….” But Billy had already rolled over Goodnight and grabbed the flask from the floor, unscrewing the lid in front of Goodnight’s eyes.

“Here you go,” he murmured and set the flask to his partner’s lips, tipping it ever so gently until lukewarm water dripped into Goody’s mouth and he sank back with a sigh.

“More?” Billy’s voice was as steady as ever, cold to outsiders, though Goodnight would have had to be deaf to miss the soft tremor. He nodded, opening his lips for another sip of stale water.

“See,” Billy murmured and placed the flask on the nightstand. “Awake.”

Goodnight huffed softly and brushed a strand of Billy’s perfectly glossy hair behind his ear. “What do I do on the day you are not around to remind me?”

Billy looked away, bitterness in the lines around his mouth.

“Why are you doing this to yourself, Goody?”

“Because I must,” Goodnight said and wrapped the strand he had tucked behind Billy’s ear around his finger and then tucking it away again. “I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t, mon cher. And so far, we are doing rather well, I daresay.”

“You are scared out of your mind thinking of the job, of going that deep under.”

“And Sam is scared of facing Bogue. Miss Emma wanders the house like a crying ghost. And yet… tomorrow, by the living God, we’ll try the game again!”

Billy huffed against Goodnight’s palm, closed his eyes against the treacherous shimmer in his iris and his lips curled up. “Poetry can’t solve everything, Goody.”

Sliding his hand to the back of Billy’s neck, the sensation of the thick, glossy strands as they slid against his fingers a totem in itself, Goodnight, once more, asked himself how and why someone had decided he deserved this - the perfect beauty, the sharp mind and charm and above all, the unquestioning devotion.

“Fuck me,” he murmured and pressed their lips together.

Billy shivered openly against him this time, a moment of hesitation, before the pushed Goodnight back against the pillow and climbed onto the bed and onto Goodnight’s lap.

There was not much between them, they both slept naked and had forgone sheets. There was nothing between them as Billy leaned down for another kiss and slotted their hips together in a smooth dancer’s move.

Goodnight groaned into Billy’s mouth, sweeping their tongues together in a slow glide that mirrored the movement of their hips. So easy to give in to it, to just give it up to Billy and let his lover take him over an easy edge into easy relief.

“Do it,” he whispered against Billy’s lips, catching the attention of the beautiful, dangerous creature he had somehow managed to lure in and that somehow had decided he, Goodnight Robicheaux - failed heir, failed soldier, failed dreamer - was worth his time. “Now.”

Billy pulled back to look into Goody’s face and whatever he saw there, in the half-light of not-yet-dawn, had him reach for Goodnight’s nightstand and the drawer where they stored the lube.

Goodnight caught his hand. “No.”

“Goody…”

“Billy please!” Goodnight lacked the strength to even whine, nothing but a breathless plea and his fingers dug into Billy’ sides, holding him in place with strength born of desperation.

They stared at each other from an arm’s length away and Billy pulled open the drawer with a low huff.

“I’m not hurting myself over your stupidity.” He growled and bent down for a quick peck on Goodnight’s lips. “Turn over.”

Goodnight did without protest. It was a question of trust, really between them, to trust Billy to hurt him when he needed it and to trust him when he refused. And every iteration in between.

As long as it was Billy touching him, Billy’s finger pushing inside him with clinical precision, just once, unpleasantly cold with lube, enough to make Goodnight’s breath hitch.

Billy.

“Knees,” he now grated, voice brimming with authority, a voice that recalled a different man than the polite, restraint man called Billy Rocks. This voice recalled a dirty bar in Arizona, a dusty road and the backseat of an FBI car, both of them too high on violence, weed and whiskey to be remotely sensible. But then, neither of them had exactly cared for their life anymore at that point.

The memory alone made Goodnight shudder and the thought of Billy lubing up his cock, the feeling of his fine-boned fingers digging into the flesh on Goodnight’s hips...

“Do you plan on taking the whole mo…” Goodnight broke off when he felt the blunt pressure at his entrance, the twinge of pain he wanted, needed to break the nightmare haze. The arrow-sharp…

“Relax,” Billy crooned. “Nice and easy.”

With a rough exhale, Goodnight dropped his forehead onto his arms and forced his body to give in, to accept the low burn of each of Billy’s little movements, each little push. Wait, push. The uncomfortable stretch. Goodnight exhaled with another full body shudder and let his shoulders sink. The single point of attention and Billy’s weapon roughened palm warm and gentle against the small of his back.

“Alright?” he murmured, the peculiar lilt to his voice a homing beacon.

“Yeah.” Even to Goodnight’s ears, the word sounded strained. He buried his face into his arms and for a moment just breathed, felt the soft brush of Billy’s hands up his flanks and down over his ass and pulled careful little draughts of air into his lungs. He decidedly didn’t think about how achingly hard his cock was. Or how much his ass burned.

“More,” he murmured into the crook of his arm and tried to shift his hips, only to be stopped by the unrelenting grip of Billy’s fingers.

“Not yet.” Billy shifted a fraction and sparks of pain flitted up Goody’s spine, changed into sparks of pleasure on their way down. “Not yet,” Billy repeated and bent down to press a kiss between Goodnight’s shoulderblades, shifting the angle more, incrementally deeper, different points of pressure, different sparks.

Goodnight breathed, in and out, fingers curled into his palms, more pain to tide him over the endless seconds where Billy waited him out.

“More!” He grated again and this time Billy followed, pushed past the pain and into him, a steady relentless movement, until just the head of Billy’s cock was seated inside him and his muscles screamed in silent protest, clenching and releasing around the girth, clamping down to just stop, don’t move.

The lips between Goodnight’s shoulderblades turned into the tip of a tongue that lapped the salt off his skin and sweet words of praise, he just spoke enough Korean to guess.

“So beautiful.” Billy’s voice sounded strained. “Tight.”

Goodnight shivered a faint laugh and finally, finally his body gave in to accept Billy’s intrusion. Relief washed over him, riding on the wave of the burn of stretched too far, and turned into pleasure even before Billy slid deeper.

“Yeah,” Goodnight breathed. “Yeah, like this.” And it seemed all the encouragement, Billy needed.

 

Sweat and their mingled bodily fluids had soaked the sheets and made lying still exceedingly uncomfortable. There might have been a remedy for that, had Goodnight been able to move more than his right arm for the occasional drag on the joint Billy had pushed between his fingers.

Sore, he thought and smiled. Tender in body and soul. And already he missed Billy’s presence with all that he had in him.

Goodnight heard him moving about in the bathroom, drawing the bath he had insisted on, but his side was cold, devoid of Billy’s acerbic wit and the gentle care he heaped upon those he loved.

Which was Goodnight, to Goodnight's everlasting astonishment. Only him. And maybe that was a small part of the bigger problem.

Framed by dimmed bathroom light, Billy cut a breathtaking figure, dressed only in yoga pants, his stunning physique on obvious display with deep shadows dipping into the curves of his muscles like a jealous lover’s fingers.

“I owe him my life, you know? Figuratively, literally,” Goodnight took a long drag from the joint and carelessly tipped the ashes into the ashtray.  “First in the war. Then after, when he picked me out of the trash and help me claw my way into a semblance of life.”

“He shouldn’t have brought you here, Goody.” Billy propped his shoulder against the door frame and cocked his hip, a coiled spring like a dancer or a warrior ready to strike.

‘Because you can’t be sure anymore whether what you’re shooting is real’ went unsaid. They both knew.

“He is my best friend, Billy. A true friend who walked into a cockroach-infested apartment and paid for hospital care and therapy.” Goodnight made a face and took another deep drag, the soft heaviness of the drugs chasing the lingering aches and pains away, alright now, that he had gotten what he needed.

“I,” he emphasized, “am his only true friend. He never doubted me. Oh, he doubted you. Plenty. Just like you doubt him now. But nevertheless, he helped get you a new identity when I came asking. Because it was the single most important thing to me.” Goodnight smiled, happy at the memory, sad at the knowledge of why he was here. “He gave me a life and I can at least try and help him bury his dead. I will.”

“If he is as good a friend, he should let you go when you ask.”

“Ah, but you see, mon cher….Je n’ai point demandé.”

With a shake of his head, Billy pushed away from the door and stepped closer, plucking the smoked down joint from Goodnight’s fingers to catch the last, cheap drag before he stubbed it into the ashtray and pulled Goodnight up. His arms snuck around Goodnight’s chest into a secure grip until Goodnight found his footing and the smile in the face of Billy’s exasperation.

“All will be well, my love. I promise.” He nodded and when Billy didn’t respond let himself be led into the bathroom and the hot water waiting for him.

 

Almond oil in the water. Billy naked across from him, lounging against the rim of the corner tub. It was so easy to forget that they were wading back into war and not the comfortable Robicheaux vacation home in Baton Rouge that Goodnight had claimed for both of them.

Except Billy never forgot.

“Will you ask him? If you can’t do it?” He had set the light to the soft fire glow of candles, had insisted on salve and kisses, on loving touches to balance the pain. The way only Billy could. But of course, he would never forget.

“Will you stay?” Goodnight gingerly let his body slide deeper into the water, twisting a little to put more weight on his hip and not his sore ass.

For a moment, or maybe a trick of the firelight, a flicker of doubt clouded Billy’s features, but almost as soon it was gone again, replaced by something sly, something clever in the endless depths of his eyes, a knowledge he had and did not share that made it easy for him to say yes. And he did.

 

***

 

At breakfast Faraday snatched Vasquez’ phone from him, triumphantly at first, then despondent.

“That's not fucking possible, Chingato! Nobody gets that high at Triple Town.”

Even bleary-eyed, ashen-faced Emma laughed as Vasquez calmly took his phone back and restarted the game. “I do, Guero.”

He smiled, Faraday glued to his side as a suspicious audience of one.

Luckily Sam had taken his three days off while they finished the maze and gone to see his family. He didn't need more children on his hands.

 

***

 

“Three minutes,” Goodnight called and shook his head.  “Not enough. We need more obstacles.”

Horne slid off his horse, as ruddy and run down looking as its rider, and wiped his face, leaving streaks of dirt behind.

“More trenches?”

“No.” Vasquez walked over, cigar between his lips, his fingers idly toying with his lasso. “Too dangerous. Trenches stay outside.” With a deep drag on the stump, he did a 360 turn and hummed softly.

“If we close this path and this,” pointing to two byways that ran away from the main road. “With hay wagons, we funnel them straight towards the church. And if we set them on fire…”

He turned towards Goodnight. Goodnight nodded.

“We’ll cut off their escape routes. That should slow down the horses nicely. And the more we can keep outside the city, the more we catch with explosions.”

“Turn it into a graveyard.” Horne agreed.

Goodnight turned his head towards the bell tower, without a bell still and sighed. A great spot. Only one high enough for a sniper’s nest and that made it relatively safe.

Vasquez below, directing the attack from the church, as one of the two architects who built the maze, more than intimately familiar with every hole and beam and explosive. And expendable, unlike Emma, who had to keep the dream together.  Ariadne, the dreamer. 

“We can't block the main street, we need clear sight,” Vasquez chewed around the cigar and blew out a slow breath as he took in the setup once more.

“How are the explosives coming along?” Goodnight asked with good humor, only slightly needling the younger man on his peculiar relationship with their Forger that seemed to consist of friendly rivalry and a certain tension, the opposite of animosity, though Faraday did his best to keep Vasquez on his toes.

“We’re done with the west side. Heading out to rig the east soon. Shall we plant a few more?”

“Do we have more?” Goodnight asked and met Vasquez’ laugh with a tight smile. Horne snorted.

“I think, I dreamed of a depot somewhere,” Vasquez deadpanned and sauntered off, a certain sway to his gait as he approached Faraday playing with his cards in the shadow of the saloon’s front porch.

“Reliable, that one,” Horne wheezed, the unexpected conversation attempt enough make Goodnight twitch.

Horne rarely spoke outside ominous religious quotes and scientific babble.  

Except for Billy, who worked with him, and Red Harvest, whom he traded books with, the only person Horne talked to was, weirdly, Faraday.

They often had spent the last days outside on the tree-shaded lawn and talked, Faraday nursing a beer, Horne with a bottle of self-made apple juice. Nobody had so far asked what they talked about and they didn't tell.

Now, though, it seemed, Jack Horne had crossed the trench and decided to be sociable.

“Vasquez? Yes.” Goodnight snorted in good humor. “He is a bit like a Swiss army knife. I have yet to find the task he's useless at.”

“Chemistry.” Horne chuckled.

“Well, Dr. Horne, few can compare in that regard.”

“Your Billy’s not half bad.” Horne shrugged and pulled his lips into what he probably thought was a friendly smile under his bushy beard. Goodnight took it as such and responded in kind.

 

***

 

Watching Vasquez approach with that easy, languid gait of his always pricked at the buried part in Faraday’s brain that contained the barb wire fortress of his survival instinct. He saw a predator close in and everything in him, for one glorious moment, sat to attention.

The low hanging guns, the scarf dangling from his belt, the lasso. His shoulders hunched forward, curled around his middle ready for a fight. Always ready for a fight.

Vasquez stuck out from the straight-backed discipline of their military trained ilk like a daisy from a bed of violets. And that analogy sucked.

Because nothing about Vasquez was daisy-like, not the sweat stains on the shirt or the way his vest hugged his slender torso, so far from the muscle the marines had stacked onto Faraday’s own. A clever tactician who excelled at small unit setups, though he let Goodnight do most of the talking.

Faraday’s eyes flickered away from Vasquez and the way his boots kicked up dust as he crossed Mainstreet, and back down to his cards.

Shuffle. Flip the jack of hearts. Shuffle.

A seemingly good man who talked the difficulties of the job through with his teammates. Who went out of his way to befriend and comfort a grieving member of said team.

Spitting the stump of his cigarette into the sand beyond the Imperial’s porch when the burn of the tobacco turned bitter, Faraday shuffled one last time and pocketed the cards.

Vasquez might not be military trained, Faraday was pretty sure of that, but just like Billy that made him only more dangerous. Unpredictable.

“Thinking about the Forgery again, Guero?” Vasquez voice with the soft accent rolled over Faraday’s senses like a caress. In the background, Goody and Horne both looked over, tolerant amusement on their faces. Whatever.

He turned back to Vasquez, to the friendly curiosity that peeked through the smirk under the unruly beard and turned inward, to the man he had built there, the puppet in his mind. Faraday sank into the thoughts like a suit he stepped into and pulled around himself, the knowledge of a man, thoroughly afraid of the creature in front of him, of the danger that Vasquez posed, yet maybe, just maybe blessed with a core of steel, fortified by the knowledge that, no matter what happened, his most precious would still be safe.

Faraday wouldn’t know, but Harp, now Sherrif Harp, did.

And so had, surprisingly, Horne.

It is the knowledge, that as long as their light shines in the world, you can carry this candle, and may it be but small, through any darkness.

Horne’s words built the character’s anchor, an understanding that Faraday maybe didn’t have - he didn’t have someone like that - but that he could emulate.

The knowledge that this was what would have Harp raise his jittery gaze to meet Vasquez’, while his hands still plucked at the loose thread at the hem of his vest in nervous worry, longing to loosen the tight-buttoned vest and catch a few unhindered breaths, not daring to, because it would draw attention to his vulnerable throat, expose his even more vulnerable chest if he did so, as if the fabric provided protection from bullets.

Vasquez’ smirk tipped into an honest smile, then into a broad grin. Proud, almost.

“So, you figured it out.”

The jittery butterfly stutter of Harp’s heart did one galloping jump. The Forgery dropped, not entirely intentional, but Faraday was good enough to smooth it out.

He tucked his lower lip between his teeth, plugged the cards from his breast pocket again and grinned

“Talked to Horne. Did you know,” he asked, incredulously,” that he has three kids?”

Vasquez whistled softly. “Isn't he living in some cabin in the woods?”

“Yeah.” Faraday shrugged, fanned the cards, folded them again. “His wife died and one of the children died. The others are living with his sister now or something.”

Something sparked in Vasquez' eyes and too late Faraday realized who he was talking to, that the soft talks with the big man didn’t belong within a ten-mile radius of Vasquez of all people.

 

_“So… no father…”_

_“It happens, you know?”_

_“I know, oh I know,” Horne had answered without judgment or pity. “And you come to me.” Amusement had colored his voice, a curious softness in his eyes as he had turned to Faraday and poured him a glass of self-made lemonade_

_“Yeah, well… I’m kinda sure that Billy and Goodnight don’t have kids. I KNOW for a fact with Emma and Red. Vasquez, I don’t know if he has even seen a kid in the last years and uh… I’d rather not ask my boss and clue him in that I’m somehow missing a good chunk in my target’s character. “_

_“I see,” Horne had chuckled, still no judgment, and had asked about Joshua’s childhood first, for ‘a proper trade needs to be a proper trade.’_

Eventually, Faraday had gotten what he needed and the next day, Horne had lured him outside again, under the same tree, and fed him lemonade. Red Harvest had joined them not much later. And none of that was Vasquez’ fucking business.

 

“So, he explain fatherhood to you?” Vasquez asked, trying to hold on to the subject in a lame voice.

“Something like that, yeah. You want something?”

Vasquez’ face screamed ‘yes’ with his eyes fixed on Faraday’s. Under the relentless sun, his silhouette practically glowed, casting him in a heroic light, despite the light-hearted way he stood, foot propped up on the upper stair of the porch, bent forward with his elbows set onto his knees.

Dark hair covered his bronzed arms where the sleeves of his shirt had been rolled up to his elbows and with the way his body angled towards Faraday, Faraday almost could believe it, this ‘yes’.

Not: yes, I want information on Horne, but yes, can we fuck, please?

Faraday raised his eyebrows into the silence and the moment passed.

Vasquez straightened, rolled his shoulders and settled on what he could get.

“More explosives?” he asked and his lips curled into a mean coyote grin, eyes sparkling with excitement.

For a futile moment, Faraday clamped down onto his own rush of adrenaline but what the hell, he had learned early on in his life that denying himself did nothing but leave him with regrets afterward. Eat the chocolate, play that game, flirt with the dangerous Mexican vaquero, it would all be over soon anyways and the chance would never come again.

As long as they left the others out of it, no harm done. Faraday loved flirting with danger.  

“Hell, yeah.” He pushed out of the chair and pocketed his cards, the Jack placed on top like a lucky charm. “I thought about a few places to rig if Mr. Super architect agrees.”

He saw how Vasquez’ face twitched, not with disappointment, not pride, but for a moment he looked like he wanted to protest at Faraday’s flippant tone.

In the end, he huffed a soft “Ouch” and pushed away from the porch.  “Not nice, Guero, I’m doing my best.”

Not truly hurt, Faraday decided, a little miffed at best.

Though he let Faraday know it with silence as they picked up the dynamite and went to work.

“Not smart, smoking, huh?”

Yeah, miffed, alright, if those were his first non-work related words after ten minutes.

Faraday looked at the cigarette between his fingers and fondly remembered all the shit they had pulled in the Marines. Then he flicked it at Vasquez’ sleeve.

The worst that could happen was, they got blown up. And then they’d wake up.

“Live a little,” he deadpanned. Vasquez looked at the last stick of dynamite in his hands that he put in place in the hut, then at Faraday and started laughing.

 

***

 

The second drug test went better. No injuries. Faraday, Emma and Billy went in and out without a hitch.

Then Goody woke up screaming. Sam clutching his chest.

 

***

 

“So… you would walk out on me without even saying goodbye?” In the dark of the night, Sam’s words sounded maybe a little more accusing that he’d meant them.

Goodnight froze where he stood, light sports bag with his bare essentials in hand, a deer caught in the headlight of guilt, a man stopped only because he didn’t know whether he should flight or fight until his shoulders dropped and he did neither.

“It’s for the best,” he murmured and turned to face his best friend in the mild light of the veranda.

“I need you, Goody.”

Sam looked up to the faded stars in the diluted night sky, grappling for words that conveyed what he barely could tell himself. “I don’t know if I can do this without you, honestly.”

“You will.” Goodnight had no such qualms. “Better than if I were here.” His voice broke on the last syllable, his eyes darting around them, looking for something he can’t possibly find.

“I shot you, Sam. I couldn’t tell you apart from Projections anymore and I shot you. Be glad it was in a dream.”

Sam shook his head and closed his eyes, giving up on the stars. “You did because you expected to. Goody. Your work record is impeccable.”

“I am not that man anymore, Sam. I tried, but it’s only gotten worse. The nightmares are invading my waking world and the fear is eating me up from the inside.” Goody’s eyes strayed everywhere but Sam’s face.

“Your totem…?”

Goody shook his head. “A flask filled to the brim with alcohol to dull my mind enough to enable me to pull a trigger because I am so afraid I’m not dreaming, Sam. And then I wake and it’s water because I cannot risk drinking because I might confuse the blur with a dream.”

“And nothing is worse than the fear of the fear,” Sam added, permitting himself to look away for just one moment. “We could try a different totem. Something less ambivalent. I need you in that dream. I need you on that operation.”

“You will have Billy,” Goodnight stated it like a given fact and Sam took it as such, a band-aid too small to cover the wound but just enough to stem the blood flow.

It wasn’t even the fact that Goody wanted to go, it was the fear, the fear itself. Goodnight’s, that they both knew intimately but judged so differently, and, an icy stab too close to his heart, Sam’s own. Though he would let Goodnight go, once he could think, believe, past the lump in his throat that begged his friend not to make Sam face this alone.

“Billy is not you, Goody.”

“No, he can be better!” Desperation clung to every word and rung hollow in Sam’s ears. He never doubted that Goodnight loved him, but for Billy he probably never had managed to place another person at the center of his thoughts.

“Not for me Goody, he can’t,” he whispered and closed his eyes.

That was Goodnight, self-centered, not as a flaw, but a part of his character. Goodnight who felt his own pain and suffering just that much more acutely yet still tried so hard for others’ sake.

“You’ll be careful,” Sam whispered and stepped into arm’s reach of his friend.

 

***

 

Looking up from Goody’s retreating form, Sam found Vasquez leaning against the frame of his open window, cigarillo clamped between his bared teeth, dark eyes slipping from Goodnight’s back to Sam, the change in situation already noted and assessed and possible mitigating measures planned.  

“Do you trust me?” Sam’s voice remained soft, no need for volume, especially not with Vasquez, skittish as he still sometimes was.

His efforts earned him a grin.

“All this?” Vasquez encompassed all of them in it, the house, the mission and, most of all, Sam. “I know why you do it.” His lips stretched around the cigarillo, revealed a humorless row of teeth. “I also know, you cannot keep me safe, Chisolm.” He paused, shrugged. “I just gotta take the risk that they find me, don’t I?”

Chisolm turned and headed inside, murmuring softly to himself. “Watch me!”

 

***

 

Billy sat at the house bar, drinking alone and in silence. The others had all cleared out, Emma, Teddy and Red Harvest in the kitchen, Horne right outside the door, worry etched into his weather worn face.

All of them were a problem that they’d have to deal with later. For now, he walked up to his best friend’s partner and grabbed his bottle to pour himself a glass.

Sam very well noted the spark of danger that lit in Billy’s eyes, but no matter what, they were in this together, they could just as well drink together.

“You’re still here,” he noted, pushing the doors to the inevitable talk wide open.

“Goody asked me to.”

Billy chugged down the half full glass, just barely suppressing the shudder.  

“He’s not so scared that he forgot why he came here in the first place,” Sam agreed, ruthlessly cutting off even the slightest twitch of bitterness. His professional opinion aside, if Goody thought he couldn’t do it, then he couldn’t. Which, too, amounted to a professional opinion. So, there was that.

Billy hissed barely audibly and cut a glance at Sam that might have gutted lesser men.

“Why?” Why does he leave me behind? Why am I here when I should be at his side when he’s suffering?

Between his own abilities and Billy’s impressive expressiveness, Sam had no problem whatsoever to understand. Unlike with those closest to him, if Goody’s precarious mental state and the fact that his ex-wife had all but dragged him into her bed during his visit, were any indication.

Excellent pointman, hopeless friend, she had said. And ‘Give Goodnight my regards.”

He hadn’t. Yet. Instead, he sat here, working on mellowing the lump in his stomach with the assassin that had somehow appeared at the Cajun’s side as if he’d always meant to be there, all traces of his previous life cast off like a skin he had outgrown when he had turned into Billy Rocks. For years, Sam had waited with bated breath for the other shoe to drop, only to now find that Billy had gone barefoot the whole time.

Sam dropped heavily onto the stool next to Billy and drained the glass. Billy refilled without comment.

“This goes way back… I was thirteen. Eleven years before I even met Goody… “

He started talking haltingly, skipping details, cutting short parts that should have been so much longer to grasp the full impact. He finished with his hand curled around his neck, gently curving over the scar hidden by the high collar of his button down and his eyes on Billy with a sad little smile that broke so painfully around the edges that it might as well have been one of Goody’s.

He knew. He saw it in the mirror often enough still.

Billy stood wordlessly and walked around the bar, grabbed a clean glass from the shelf behind it and filled it with water before he set it in front of Sam with finality.

“Drink,” he said. “You need a clear head. Tell me what we do.”

 

***

 

"So....here's what I know, Vasquez..."

The Mexican stood rooted to the spot, hand frozen in motion at Faraday’s voice.

"A mediocre architect who operates in Europe somehow ends up in the US and on a top notch team trying to take down one of the country's most dangerous crimelords."

Vasquez’ hand slipped off the door handle, his fingertips tugging it close with a last gentle motion.

A heartbeat passed before he turned, head tilted expectantly for whatever else Faraday had to say and Faraday wanted to yell at him just to elicit a reaction, any reaction.

"Weirdly nobody finds any of that the least bit suspicious, especially not our resident CIA lady and actual architect. It makes a man wonder what she knows. Or where you vanish to on your little trips together. Nice cufflinks btw,” he ticked off the points, all the little oddities, all the red flags. Although until today they had been only that: red flags, but no wailing sirens yet.  

Vasquez' eyes flicked to the side, to his own wrist where his hand lay curled around the shoulder strap of the laptop bag and something in his eyes glinted. His lips twitched and that killed any notion of guilt Faraday might have thought he saw in his eyes.

“Oh, before I forget:” Faraday cut through the silence in the empty hallway and low hum of voices downstairs effortlessly, he had no need to raise his voice. “Condolences to that loss in the family...Though I heard you’re maybe not quite as sad about that.”

Faraday had just wanted to check his mails, get away from the stifled atmosphere downstairs, this feeling of impending catastrophe now that Goodnight Robicheaux had walked out on them, and get his head onto something else. All his inquiries had come up empty past the initial meager information but today of all days...

That thing that had gone down in Vancouver, faint rumors only, about a team that had taken out its own pointman. Lured him into a trap and then locked him in the dreams until he broke.

Faraday stayed away from the day to day business of dreamshare, all the politicking, bickering, jealousy-fueled crap and paranoia were a game he didn’t play. But naturally, someone suggested that Vasquez’ - ‘I got coffee because you’re working late’, ‘Teach me to duel’, ‘I have your back in a firefight’, ‘I get your sense of humor’ Vasquez - had somehow had had a hand in his brother’s demise.

Vasquez, who stood six feet away, his eyes narrowing dangerously on a shuddering inhale, who finally looked away and then down to his feet.

Vasquez who always laughed as if it were the last time and who smiled at Faraday like he mattered.  

In an industry as rife with riddles as dreamshare, someone had to inevitably have correlated the travels of one with the disappearance of the other.

Faraday took a deep breath.

“Tell me you didn’t, you asshole…”

“Guero…” Vasquez’ left twitched and it took that little movement to remind Faraday that Vasquez still wore his revolvers as he took a step closer.

“Vasquez?” Hearing Sam’s voice from the stairway felt like a bucket of ice water on Faraday anger.

Instead of turning to meet him, Vasquez closed his eyes for the fraction of a second and took another step towards Faraday. “I can’t right now, Guero. But I didn’t-”

“A word please.” Sam’s voice preceded him by about a second and yeah, no way Faraday was going to make an idiot of himself in front of Sam Chisolm.

“Go, Vasquez. Bossman wants to talk to you.”

A flicker of pain crossed Vasquez’ face and of all the crap that hung between them, this was the one thing Faraday understood wholeheartedly. It all wouldn’t have been half as bad had he not wanted it so badly not to be true.

“Coming,” Vasquez said quietly and turned around, ridiculous getup tingling softly with every step.

Faraday still stood at the hallway window, angrily smoking, when Red hopped up the stairs to fetch him.

 

***

 

“Well…” Sam took a deep breath. His fingers brushed over the precise crease in his pants and with another breath, a quick nod he faced the assembled masses head on. “Alright.”

Everybody seemed to have closed ranks. Emma and Teddy on the couch, with Red behind them and Horne not too far off instead of at his usual place by the chemistry table. Billy had chosen one of the armchairs but even he seemed to have turned towards the group instead of keeping up his customary distance. Like a herd of unsettled sheep that huddled together because the bellwether had absconded. Vasquez slouched on the table, the same spot, Billy had had the first time they’d met here.

Faraday sat, chair turn around and his arms crossed on the back, between them and the door, angry still, both at himself because he couldn’t crack the riddle and them for being so easily rattled.

Granted, the pointman running out on them two days before an OP was the opposite of confidence inspiring, but at least he’d left them his telepathic soulmate and should they really need Goodnight’s data, they could always ask Vasquez for it, couldn’t they?

As if he had heard, Vasquez glanced over, his gaze a prickling taunt. Faraday studiously kept his eyes fixed on Sam.

“Before I go on, I need you all to know that what I’m going to tell you is in no way a judgment of Goodnight’s abilities. He is and always will be, one of the best pointmen I ever worked with. But, as his friend, I knew how draining the nature of this job might be on him. And let it never be said that I don’t come prepared.”  His brittle smile betrayed too much.  “I hoped it wouldn’t come to pass, but with an OP that critical, doubling up is not paranoia…” Someone in the team pile snorted. “...it’s common sense.”

Faraday bit back the curse. Of course. Of course. These fucking assholes.

“Cayetano? You're up.” Sam stepped back and Vasquez stood with a little huff that hovered right between annoyance and amusement at the introduction. His laptop balanced with ease on his right hand, a confident smile played over his lips. In his element.  

Faraday didn’t wait for Vasquez’ gaze to hit him. He didn’t need to see the fucking bastard’s smug visage right now. Admitting he’d been bested would have gone easier if it hadn’t been in front of him this whole time.

So, yeah…

His chair screeched over the hardwood as he pushed it away and marched out, wood clattering on wood not quite loud enough to drown out Vasquez’s  smooth baritone. Faraday slammed the door behind himself and shut him up.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Je n’ai point demandé. - I did not ask.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some things are easier than others. I'm still not sure what this chapter was, but once again, I must thank Eridani and everybody else who took my complaints about how much I hate writing sex with good humor and thanked me for doing it anyways.  
> Thanks to Noph for the Goody check!
> 
> btw, there is sex in this chapter.  
> and Dragons. Don't ask me.
> 
> In case you find weird number and letter combinations: That's not the question to "42" that's "My cat jumped on the keyboard."

_Come!_

_Come and get me!_

_Come and tell me that it matters._

_Or don’t_

 

With burning eyes, Faraday closed his commode and threw his colorful boxers onto his bag.

Because, yeah. Unsurprising.

 

Really.

He pushed away from the commode and stomped into the bathroom. The one where Vasquez’ shaving kit and toothbrush still cluttered one half of the double sinks.

 

“You’re being childish,” he told his mirror image with the unhealthy tint to his skin and the aggravated eyes.

“Yeah, I know. So?” answered the voice that had gotten good at pretending he had grown past this a long time ago.

 

Vasquez...

Everything that had been so blatantly obvious the whole time. The injury. All the little moments, all the small suggestions that went so far beyond an architect. His closeness to Emma.

For just a second, Faraday wondered if they had sex, then he kicked the thought.

Nobody who looked at him like Vasquez had the night Faraday had caught him with the cufflink, would go after a recent widow. At least this he was sure of.

But the rest?

Cayetano and Jesús… So obvious.

As it seemed none of the others had been surprised.

Billy had seemed unflappable as always. Horne hadn’t care. Red … Red worked for Chisolm. No secret there.

Except Teddy. Teddy had looked dumbfounded. Gummi bear points for Teddy.

 

That put Faraday on a level with Teddy Q. Splendid.

 

And now? He could have had what he wanted. Which was a shot at their replacement architect.

Instead he had what he didn’t need ever… the knowledge that everybody in this group down there had outmaneuvered him. Especially Vasquez.

 

The man in the mirror scoffed.

“Joshua.”

 

Someone could have come and talked to him.

Don’t be childish, the voice chided. They got more important things to do.

Joshua heard the ‘more important’ loud and clear and closed his eyes.

So yeah. He had been bested. He’d fallen. Scraped his ego. Nothing new there. Time to get up, get his shit together and get out of Dodge.

Time to stop delaying in the hopes that anybody - Vasquez, the voice supplied - cared enough to show up just mollify his stupid loser ego self.

 

Faraday flinched at the knock from Vasquez’ side. No, not like this.

 

“Ey, Guero, you ok?”

 

Faraday turned on the faucet and splashed two hands of icy water in his face, his throat too choked up on his own bitterness to speak.  But then, Faraday wasn’t in the least surprised when Vasquez picked the lock and behind the safe cage of his hands, maybe, for a moment he’d forever deny, his lips twitched, anger momentarily overridden.

 

“Guero, listen…”

It didn’t last long.

“Don’t ‘Guero’ me!” he snapped. “Go and shove your stupid Mexican nickname where the sun don’t shine. Scrap the lube!

Just fucking go and take your stupid expensive coffee and drink one to the stupid white trash boy you made a fool off. Yay. You did it. Did you have fun?”

Vasquez hadn’t moved into the room, hovering on the border with his uninjured shoulder shoved against the door frame like the vaquero he so easily became.

 

“ _Did you have fun, you asshole?_ ” Faraday’s rage demanded an answer, while the part of him that felt the humiliation begged to not ask.

This time Vasquez answered with a soft and plain “Sí.”

“Yeah? Splendid! You know fucking what, Vasquez? Your little exercise told me nothing new.

It’s nothing my mom’s pimp hasn’t told me before!

But you know what? I didn’t end up like her, on drugs and with my legs spread. I didn’t end up running stuff for people like him!”

Vasquez flinched and Faraday grinned. There was no need to yell. The intimacy of the small room worked so much better with the truth.

“I pulled myself out of that shithole by my own teeth. I worked myself through the army and a few wars and into dreamshare by the power of my own damn abilities, no matter how inadequate and stupid the likes of _you_ say I am…”

Vasquez pushed away from the door frame, eyes narrowed under dark brows into the kind of look that made men cringe.

“...and I will not!”

“Shut up.” Vasquez’ hand curled around the corner of Faraday’s sink.

“ _Be!”_ His voice rose.

“Shut up, Guero.”

“ _Made a Fool! By some WASHED OUT MEXICAN…_ ” until Faraday yelled.

“I said, SHUT UP!”

Faraday did. And turned to slam his fist into the white trash face in the mirror that never left him alone, no matter where he went or how nice his surroundings.

Spider cracks splintered the surface and immediately filled with blood.

Now, the silence settled in him, too.

He didn’t flinch when Vasquez’ warm hand closed over his wrist and pulled the arm away with a soft hum, the likes he tended to use with the horses in the dream.

“You are not inadequate.”

Faraday blinked, sought Vasquez' eyes and somehow, oddly, there was nothing but warmth there. He let Vasquez gently lower his hand into the sink and turn on the water without looking. Still icy.

“None of the others even noticed what was going on with me.” A gun-calloused thumb stroked slow circles over the back of Faraday’s hand, built a counter point to the pain until it became bearable. “This whole operation is based on your ideas. Bringing Bogue to kneel. Taking out his car.”

Vasquez’ voice barely sounded over the running faucet. But that wasn’t necessary. Faraday heard him just fine with the bare hand span between them.

“You are a genius. You see things everybody else misses. You read people better than anyone of us.”

Vasquez brought his left hand up to curl it around Faraday’s jaw while Faraday’s galloping thoughts still twisted aimlessly around the way Vasquez’ fingers chased the pain from his bleeding hand.

“I will not let anyone speak like this about you. Not even you, Guero.” His thumb curved along Faraday’s jaw, almost, not quite touching his lower lip. “Got it?”

No. He didn’t. Not really.

_Why are you defending me? Why do you even care?_

So many words and half of them not his own, never been his own.

Vasquez’ beard prickling lips cut off all of them, brushing against Faraday’s lips in a soft, apologetic touch.

“Lo Siento, Guero. I didn’t want to hurt you.”

Forgiveness came so easy if only someone acknowledged him, acknowledged he was worth ...anything, really. A very bad habit that he had himself trained out of, could resist if he tried or wanted to. He wanted, alright. The warmth across his lips, the faint, bitter taste of tobacco that his tongue licked off Vasquez’ mouth.

“I’ll live,” Faraday grouched, appeased for now but not yet forgiving. Nipping at Vasquez lip Faraday hummed softly. “My curiosity might not.”

This made Vasquez laugh, a low sound that ended in arms that wrapped around Faraday’s shoulder and a little row of kisses peppered to the side of his neck and his jaw, Vasquez’ eyes shining like someone had polished the warm mahogany color to perfect brightness. He brought up Faraday’s still bleeding hand and brushed a kiss to the knuckles before stepping away to grab one of the plush towels and pressed it to the split skin.

“Most of what you have is right. Except, I didn’t die. Obviously.” Vasquez spoke lowly with his gaze fixed to the task of carefully dabbing the blood away to get a look at the damage underneath and Faraday automatically filed it away as ‘medically trained’

“They fucked me up, shot me and then called Interpol to collect my body. When I was gone Interpol assumed I was either dead or out of commission and now it’s a waiting game for them whether I show up again. Chisolm pulled some strings and has my case for the moment but that won’t last.”

He rolled his left shoulder in an unconscious motion and this time Faraday reached out to brush his fingers over the thin fabric of yet another one of Vasquez’ linen shirts, the wound under the thread, a scar already, unmistakable.

“You ok?” he asked and let his fingers linger for a moment, just enough time to gauge Vasquez mood, his truth, the dreamy expression in his eyes as he watched Faraday in return.  

“Yeah… I will be.”

Vasquez shifted the towel wrapped hand out of the way as he leaned forward again to steal another kiss, soft and careful, disbelieving in the way dreams sometimes were.

“Was it really your team?”

Vasquez’ mouth stilled with a sigh then he nipped at Faraday’s lower lip.

“Way to eviscerate the mood, Guero. Sí, my team and my Ex. Already long ex by then.”

“Oh wow, talk about trust issues.” Faraday said and leaned into Vasquez not enough to be physical, just enough to provide an illusion of support if needed. “Lemme guess… we’re gonna take this extra slow?”

He didn’t want to, but if Vasquez needed… hell… the fact that Vasquez stood here willing to take this job, in one piece and together… Vasquez kissing him was a minor miracle and Faraday was not going to complain if the man needed a little time. He had two healthy hands after all and a sense of decency.

“Do you want to?”

“No! I just thought…”

The door to his room loomed like a lewd promise with the way it framed Vasquez shoulders, a visual presentation Freud would have had a stroke over.

Vasquez followed his line of sight and grinned.

 

They hit Faraday’s room in a flurry of limbs and untucked clothes. Vasquez let himself be crowded against the door, arms raised for Faraday to slowly tugged the shirt - the damn shirt - higher and higher, following strips of bared skin with his teeth.

Bronze skin, dark hair that dotted his chest and ran below his navel, dark hair dusting wiry arms used to hard work. Vasquez wasn’t quite as broad as Faraday but damn if he didn’t have a fighter’s body. And scars.

Fresh ones, like the deep nick where a piece had been taken out of his side and the puckered bullet hole and surgical incision at his shoulder. But also the thin white stripes that had had years to heal but never quite vanished. Traces of cigarette burns, so distinctive. Faraday pressed his lips to them and breathed against the sun-kissed skin, inhaled the warmth of Vasquez’ scent.

He didn’t ask.

A playful lick around one of Vasquez’ nipples, a quick bite and he grabbed Vasquez’ wrists and lifted them over his head, mindful of the injured left.

“Which one is your real name?” he asked and shifted his fingers against Vasquez until they slotted neatly together, folded together like they belonged. He caught Vasquez’ playfully annoyed groan with his mouth, a lick between his lips, a kiss, a peck, more laughter.

“Neither.” Vasquez dropped his head against the door in his back and cracked open an eye. “Both.”

“Seriously now?” Faraday bit gently along the line of Vasquez jaw, up to his ears and the soft, vulnerable skin behind it. He swiped his tongue up over the pulse point, reveling in the darkly sweet scent of burnt raisin and the musk of Vasquez’ sweat underneath. Reveled, too, in the low moan, as he closed his teeth over Vasquez' earlobe and tugged carefully, only to nibble up the shell right after. Sensitive.

Faraday grinned. More so at the breathy quality in Vasquez answer.

“Second and third name.” Vasquez’ hips shifted up, pressed against Faraday’s crotch, a slow shift that had them both still and the question forgotten for a moment.

“Real name? What do I call you in bed?”

Vasquez stilled. His fingers flexed against Faraday’s hands, the body that had been so languid and lose a moment before tensing. Faraday already wanted to take back the question, assure Vasquez he didn’t want to know, when he spoke again.

“It must not leave this room. I have worse after me than Interpol and if they find out I live….”

Faraday dipped his head and wiped the words off Vasquez’ lips, much gentler than he felt at the words. More trouble. More hurt. Cigarette burns on his skin. False names. Double identities readily available on two different continents.

“Then don’t tell me. I’ll just make something up.” Another brush of lips. Vasquez huffed with cheerful surprise. “How about… Javier? Then I could call you JJ.”

Vasquez’ head lifted only long enough to thud against the door behind him again, his arms in Faraday’s grip shaking with mirth. “No, Guero.”

“Spoilsport.” Faraday leaned in, brought their faces together until not a breath’s width was between them and smiled.

“It’s ok, V.”

He let go of Vasquez’ hands and slipped his fingers and palms slowly down his arms, the strong expanse of his ribcage, a shadow of ink under skin, over the rapid flutter of Vasquez heartbeat and down to his side. Rested his right palm over the ugly scar at Vasquez side. “I bet it’s something weird anyways. I would be embarrassed too if my mom had named me Hortensio.”

 

Faraday found himself in a deadlock and dragged to the bed within seconds, still wheezing with laughter as Vasquez dumped him on the soft cover and climbed his lap, teeth bared in wolfish delight as he tore open Faraday’s shirt, pale green with tiny blue dots that gave it an unexpected depth from a distance but looked hideous up close. Faraday had bought it on a whim because he had thought his mother would have liked it. Now dark blue buttons flew every which way and Vasquez’ teeth grazed the hollow of his throat with a playful snarl.

“Careful there, Hortensio! I’m easily startled.”

Vasquez ground his hips against Faraday’s in responsed and bit his collarbone, a sharp nip and reminder to behave that was lost in it’s entirety on Faraday and Vasquez knew with the way he grinned, his hands spanning over Faraday’s sides to hold him in place as his lick his way lower and over Faraday’s nipples. Sucking, biting. Hungry.

“Shit, V. Do that again. No, wait! Don’t! I’ll embarrass myself,” Faraday whined as the same movement of Vasquez’ hips shifted against his cock, delicious pressure and just enough friction to come if he kept this up.

Under his hands the expanse of Vasquez back shifted, muscles pushing against his fingertips, more scars, but mostly just delicious, hard warmth. “Just...get in me or let me… I don’t care which.”

Vasquez paused, lifted his head like a startled wolf, tilted inquisitively, eyes nearly black.  

His grin grew slowly, from a corner of his mouth as if it awoke along with a new, surprising thought.

“Fuck me,” he said and Faraday almost came right then and there.

 

V laid out before him like this, on his knees, hands wrapped tightly around the iron headboard. So vulnerably naked, so beautiful and wanton… Vasquez in bed looked surprisingly like Vasquez shooting people and Faraday approved.

He slowly twisted his lube covered finger inside him, even as Vasquez tensed with surprise, a small gasp maddeningly loud in the room when Faraday added a second.

“So beautiful,” he murmured and pressed a kiss to the small of Vasquez back. Sliding his fingers back and in again, scissoring slowly.

He didn’t know why he had asked. Maybe something his brain had picked up on in the way Vasquez had said it. _“Have you done this before, V?” “Fucked men? Sí. Been fucked? Eh….”_

“Feeling good there V?”

In lieu of an answer Vasquez shifted back against him, swiveled his hips against the fingers inside him with a desperate groan and a cut off curse that Faraday understood only half of, but enough to make it funny.

He bit a globe of Vasquez’ ass in retaliation and only got more cursing, tinged with laughter in response.

“Get on with it, cabrón!”

Faraday leaned over the long expanse of Vasquez’ back, peppering kisses all along the way up to his shoulders while his fingers kept working in a maddeningly slow pace. He reached, and bit, Vasquez’ neck, as he curled them, brushed over Vasquez’ sweet spot, just to feel him buck up against the weight that held him down, to hear his helpless moan as intimately a possible.

“Just a little more, sweetheart. You’re so hot. Elegant. Dangerous. Fuck, V. The worst was wanting you and knowing something was wrong. Sleeping with the bad guy brings nothin’  but trouble.” He added a third finger. “And now look at me.”

Vasquez under him whined and rocked back against him, snarled the second after trying to shift back into the hand against his ass.

Faraday nibbled down his shoulder and neck and back, the faint line of scarred dots that ran around his shoulder blade, tugged against the leather cord of his medaillon, whatever he could reach with Vasquez’ head dropped between his arms, chest heaving with each lowly moaned breath that Faraday’s movements elicited.

His own cock slid against the hard muscles of Vasquez’ thigh, his hips shifting in time with the movements of his fingers inside the man, just to allow himself the reassurance that yes, he would have him.

 

Sitting back he wrapped his free hand around his cock, squeezed once to force back a measure of control before he slicked up the condom with another generous heap of lube. He hated pre-lubed rubbers with a passion for no other reason that they were a bitch to put on. Vasquez had almost doubled over with laughter earlier when he had helped him with nimble fingers and a sure touch and that had been when Faraday knew he couldn’t let this be the only time between them.

 

He lined up, a hand holding Vasquez hips in place, acutely aware of the man’s smoldering gaze, his open mouthed pants as Faraday pressed carefully forward with murmured encouragements, the sight of his cock slowly pushing in almost enough to gut him then and there.

“Faraday…” Vasquez moaned and dug his teeth into his lower lip to cut off whatever more he had been about to say. It didn’t matter. Faraday understood.

His bloody hand landed heavily between Vasquez’ hands on the headboard, curling around the iron with a painful grip,  as he shifted fully forward and bottomed out, chest pressed along the sweat covered length of Vasquez back, each of their breaths synched to the other with no hair’s breadth to spare.

So close. So deep. So hot.

“Mierda.” Vasquez chuckled and Faraday pressed a kiss to his neck, caught the skin between his teeth to suck a violently possessive mark against his pulse before he reached Vasquez’ lips and licked between them, against his tongue, awkward angle be damned. He needed another taste of bitter tang of tobacco, of luxury coffee and too much sugar with a hint of cinnamon.

“So hot, V. So fucking beautiful.” He shifted a little, shifted back, close like this to gauge Vasquez’ reaction and slid back in, small rocking motions to give his lover time to adjust.

“Feels good,” Vasquez murmured against Faraday’s lips, assessing the situation, always the pointman and now Faraday grinned about it. He wasn’t even really subtle in doing it..

“Stop analyzing.” Faraday shifted on his knees, changed the angle a little and gave a slow rolling twist of his hips, deeper, searching, finding. Obviously, when Vasquez pushed his head back against Faraday’s shoulder with a low groan, baring more of his throat.

“That’s it, darling. Very good.” Faraday moved again, slowly, until he fell into a languid rhythm, carefully taking Vasquez apart, bleeding the tension out of his shoulders with every move, following the desperation of his groans into blissful oblivion.

He didn’t hear the whisper at first, leaning back a little to give himself room to move. But then it occured again, urgent almost on Vasquez moan and he leaned back in, slowed down to catch whatever secret Vasquez thought was imperative to share _now_ of all times.

His mouth moved against Faraday’s ear and Faraday’s hips snapped forward, tore the sound from Vasquez lips with a deep groan and a desperate “Stop playing, Faraday!”

“As you wish.” Faraday grinned between the glowing skin of Vasquez shoulder blades and then, because he could, and maybe just because he maybe never could again, he added. “Rafael.”

Vasquez snorted and bit into the flesh of Faraday’s arm on the headboard. Because that, it seemed, was how they rolled.

Faraday snatched his arm away and grabbed Vasquez slim hips, leaving it to him to keep himself upright as he pounded into him, driving him higher and higher. When his own movement became erratic, control dropping rapidly in Vasquez tight heat, he reached around them, grabbing Vasquez’ cock to help him along, push him over before Faraday lost every damn sense to the man and the way his body clutched him tight, the same way everything else ensnared his mind because god damn, if he didn’t…

Vasquez came with a helpless shout, back bending in a desperate arch, beautiful to behold, Faraday’s name on his lips. Faraday answered in kind as he followed.

 

They dropped onto the bed in a heap of limbs and endorphin-fueled chuckles.

Faraday was the first to move, to dispose of the condom and get a wet towel to wipe down Vasquez just because it was nice to take care of someone sometimes, especially if they looked this deliciously tousled and fucked out and sprawled across the sheets, too relaxed to move and he knew that it was his doing. He also brought a dry towel to cover the wet spot before he climbed back into the bed and dragged Vasquez into his arms to bury his face in his curls and whisper “Rafael” just to see the inexplicable delight in his lover’s eyes. “Might’ve been a good Hortensio, too,” he added and, predictably, Vasquez laughed.

 

***

 

“The girl… who is she?” Faraday lay on his side one leg casually tangled with Vasquez’, between them an ashtray and the peculiar smell of Vasquez’ cigarillos.

The man himself eyed Faraday over said cigarillos and, like a flip switched, his dark eyes closed off, even if he didn’t refuse outright, just kept staring at Faraday as if there was deeper secrets found on his face.

“I don’t know you well enough to tell you, Guero.”

Huh… Honesty. Faraday tilted his head and took a long drag off his Gauloises. “Alright.”

He smiled for Vasquez’ comfort, too much of this story still in the tangled web of secrecy that Vasquez’ had woven around his personas and Faraday knew he had just barely made it onto the web, let alone whatever it protected in its center.

So instead of prying, he reached out to place his hand against Vasquez’ ribs.

“Just this… when we go under, do you need her protected?” The question was worth the surprise on the point man’s face alone and the inappropriate glee at having surprised him.

Faraday had maybe hoped for as much, he had not expected the way Vasquez' face softened and the smile that curled around the next drag of his cigarillo, the warmth of his hand over Faraday’s and Faraday couldn’t help but feel he had just been thoroughly read and found out.

“Not at the detriment of your own life, Guero.” Vasquez made a face. “Though I perform better when I know… “

“...that she’s not going to get shot in front of your eyes?” Regret followed Faraday’s words and the violent shudder that wracked Vasquez, though he nodded in the same movement.

“But I got it under control. I was just surprised. Bad timing the last time.”

“Yeah… timing that gets you shot is usually bad,” Faraday deadpanned and grinned when laughter drove the pain from Vasquez' eyes.

“Correct.” He plucked the cigarette from Faraday’s fingers, ignoring the protest as he stubbed it out along with his cigarillo and reach around to place the ashtray onto the nightstand.

“Night is short, Guero… tomorrow is going to be a long, bad day. I need you at your best.”

“Sí, which is why I would have liked to finish my cigarette in peace, you heathen.”

Faraday counted it another strike when Vasquez laughed again and another when he slowly rolled Faraday onto his back.

“You need help to sleep?” Before Faraday had any chance to answer, Vasquez' lips already had closed warm and wet over his pulse, sucking slowly over the sensitive skin and Faraday absolutely felt that all the way to his toes and every spot in between.

“You know....keep convincing me…”

 

***

 

They lay curled up in each other’s arms in the dark when Faraday drifted up from the soft waves that pulled him into sleep a last time.

“What’s her name?”

“Alejandra,” Vasquez murmured into Faraday’s shoulder just barely awake enough to understand the question anymore.

“Ok,” Faraday smiled with his lips whispering over the curls at Vasquez’ temple.

 

***

 

He had always suspected that Interstate 5 in the dead of night constituted as a liminal space, an endless northward stretch through wide open land that whispered of freedom, of discovery, of a chance to be who you were in the breathless voices of a thousand people who had come here to find paradise and lost themselves instead, of thousands of people murdered and eaten up by the hungry maws of time and winner’s history.

The Interstate 5, to him, had always proved a liar that promised to leave the past behind and then turned around and slammed it in his face, the past coming to punish him for the crimes he'd committed in the name of the greatest lie. Freedom. Bitter sister of peace and justice.

Maybe he could still have believed it enough to lie himself through the dreams, but the army had broken him and too many jagged pieces cut through the hopes of ever being whole again.

Goodnight already reached for the dash and the flask in the cupholder, realizing too late that he had left it behind.

No dreams. No fear. No death.

As if. He loved dreaming too much, loved the rush of danger, the excitement, the cunning needed to work his way through a dreamscape, the tactical ingenuity of truly magnificent defenses, the impossible beauty of the greatest dreams.

The two poles between his existence slowly got torn apart whenever he got too close to the world he had left behind.

 

When his phone rang, he expected Sam and another attempt to bring him back. Billy’s silence telling him how much he loved him, although they had agreed on radio silence until they met up again. Maybe a job offer.

Goodnight, blessed be his Cajun roots, insisted on not being superstitious.

“Goodnight… you will want to hear this one.” He did not believe in fate. But he didn’t believe in coincidences either.

The voice on the phone belonged to someone with whom he connected polite professional respect, not friendship, not sympathy, but as two of the best dreamshare security operatives in the world, as THE best security operatives in the world, they shared an understanding that their lessers lacked.

“Good evening, Dominic,” they came from different angles, but they both made their living shoring up the weaknesses in people’s minds. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I heard you had a very peculiar job lined up…” Goody swerved sharply to the right, catching the exit to a cheap restaurant and gas station at the last second.

“Yes. And?” Impolite, his mother’s voice chided in his mind. Billy is there! His mind screamed.

“I got your inquiry. A friend of mine lately worked with a guy who let slip he did Bogue’s defenses.” Goodnight sat straighter. “That man specializes not only in defenses, he teaches people to actively change the dream! We are not talking about projections anymore, Goodnight…”

Drawing the connection from his simple inquiry to Dominic over Emma’s boss to how the former extractor knew that much was the simplest puzzle to solve. The other was a solid danger assessment, solved the moment he understood who Cobb talked about.

“Mournier,” Goodnight said. The crazy Dream Spinner. A kind of dealer for the rich and famous who kept away from the more competitive end of the dreamshare world by creating the night of their dreams for people who could afford it. Got passed over at the Oscars again? Call Mournier, he’ll make it happen in your dreams and you can dish out that perfect speech you prepared with Meryl Streep applauding you on.

Wanna fuck Marilyn Monroe? No problem. Have dark fantasies that are too problematic to hire a prostitute for? Mournier is in.

Mournier had a reputation for touching just on this side of crazy and more than a little weird. Made him good. It made him great at what he did.

It made him wholly unpredictable when he taught someone to reinforce his own dreams by dreaming.

“So you’ve heard of him…” The man on the other side of the phone exhaled slowly in the self-important way that made him so unlikeable, though he usually wasn’t self-aware enough to notice.

Outside the car window an owl hooted. Goodnight flinched.

“Any idea what to expect?” With pride, Goodnight noted that his voice sounded firm, no sign of the terror that flooded through him. It wasn’t just the dream and the problematic drug setup, the risk for real injury.

If Bogue awoke too soon… if Bogue woke and saw their faces… if he knew what they were doing.

Anything short of complete destruction to his mind wouldn't do.

Dreaming wasn’t the problem. Faces in a dream were a dream, likely forgotten in the first waking moments. Flashes in a crowd, once seen and carried over. Sam, they could explain away. Sam was famous enough and their connection worked in everybody’s favor with Bogue’s dream, although the other were kept unawares about that, too. Waking though? Bogue managing to destroy the dream?

Cobb took his sweet time, the sound of fine glasses clinking against teeth, wine sloshing into a mouth. So he still drank, though less probably than in the days before coming home. Goodnight had only met him once in person, on a job in Aden. They had bonded, as much as two people could who were hunted by that many demons, over a shared interest into the deepest, most impossible the sleeping mind could be capable of.

“Dragons,” he said and Goodnight closed his eyes. “What I heard was that he had someone create dragon projections.”

The navi said 6 hours back, two more to the drop point. If they hadn’t changed it.

 _“The fear of the fear keeps you in line, Goodnight,” Sam’s voice said softly in his memory, a late night phone call in yet another sleepless night, “and I don’t know how to help you. I don’t know how to make you help yourself, to push you over that edge that you -_ you _\- need to cross.”_

_“Maybe it isn’t important enough my friend, to shake up the precious equilibrium I managed to build?”_

_“Then I can’t help you.”_

_“Like death, my friend, this is a road each of us can only walk alone.”_

“Very well then.” Goodnight confirmed the location in the navi. “Dragons. There is something new every day. My regards to Arthur, Dominic. I will come back to you. Au Revoir.”

He neither waited nor cared for an answer as he gunned the machine and roared back to his team.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> special thanks to all who ever put of with me and my perfectionist shit.  
> Special thanks especially to Eridani and Hazel_Athena who helped out by basically just telling me that it was fine ;)

He woke to the soft tickle of sunlight ghosting across his face, body burrowed deep into the sheets and arm still outstretched towards the empty spot in his bed, the warmth of a body lingering under his hand. He slowly swept his hand over the spot and buried his nose deeper into his pillow to chase the elusive musk and warmth that belonged to Vasquez.

Who was no longer there.

Before doubt had a chance to dig its claws into his thoughts, Faraday rolled out of bed and grabbed a new pair of shorts from the travel bag that still sat half forgotten at the foot of the bed.

Vasquez hadn’t gotten far if he wanted to flee. The sound of a tap running gave him away, the open door felt like an invitation.

Faraday bumped his shoulder into the door on his way to taking it, too preoccupied with the half naked man in front of the mirror ahead, his black pants sitting low on his hips and open, too. Muscles shifted idly under bronze skin on his athlete’s back, scars only accentuating how damn ripped he was. A wolf in human form, now as mellow as he probably ever got, tension temporarily alleviated in Faraday’s presence.

Last night, he had been too distracted to notice the abstract line art tattoo of a jumping horse that curved around the right side of Vasquez ribcage like a very deliberate statement.

There was nothing unintentional about the man, ever-shifting walls and invisible trenches and all.

With sudden clarity, Faraday recognized that Vasquez loved horses. Just that.

An information innocent enough that he dared carry it around on his body, yet significant enough that he had put it on his skin. It didn’t say whether he had been a farmboy who had grown up with them or if he plain loved the idea of them. Whatever it was - and with the surety, Vasquez moved around them in the dream, Faraday bet the former - it was the first, tangible glimpse into the man’s past, a nugget taken and stored close to Faraday’s heart for safe keeping.

  
Faraday crossed his arms, covering the unexpected discovery, as well as his embarrassment at having been caught staring. To no avail.

Vasquez' mage in the mirror grinned around the toothbrush and winked.

 _'Holy shit.'_ Faraday was hard tempted to pinch himself. _'I had sex with that.'_

 

As he stepped closer, Vasquez grabbed for Faraday’s toothbrush and squeezed a generous amount of toothpaste on top, waiting for his lover to reach him.

Instead of taking it, Faraday slotted himself neatly half behind the man and ran a gentle hand over the taut muscles of Vasquez ass, a slow kiss grazing over Vasquez shoulder as Faraday searched the other’s face.

“You ok?”

In the mirror, Vasquez' mahogany eyes softened under the harsh glare of 4000 Kelvin lights and had Faraday not known better, watching the darkness melt like shadows in the sun felt like witnessing someone fall in love.

“Sí, estoy bien, Guero.” Vasquez kept his voice deliberately soft and offered the prepared toothbrush once more with a lazy grin. “Brush your teeth. I want to kiss you.”

 

Faraday complied with his head draped against Vasquez shoulder and his eyes on the man’s face in the mirror, sappy grin and all. He listened with half an ear as his new point man detailed the changes in plan with Goody gone. Surprisingly little as it turned out.

The main divergence came with Emma’s spot in the fight, much more exposed and much more in danger as it were.

Risky,  but try as he might, Faraday couldn’t think of an alternative.

 

“She’ll be fine,” he mumbled around the chemical taste of mint.

Vasquez’ subdued ‘Yeah’ was a weak echo of his fingers curled around the small medallion at the hollow of his throat, something Faraday had studiously ignored the night before. Politeness extended between dreamers.

Now, though, he eyed it in the mirror and pieced together what he remembered from the engraving. Wings, a sword.

Reaching around Vasquez, lazily threading his hand under his arm, Faraday carefully brushed the skin under the medallion, mindful not to touch it.

“St. Michael.” For some reason, Faraday’s mother had always had a love for saints, she never set foot into a church but revered long dead people as if that might save her broken life. “The Archangel. Protector of protectors.”

Vasquez eyed him with hawk-like intensity, granting Faraday barely a minute for his idle curiosity. They both knew there was nothing idle about it. Michael was God’s enforcer, the sword of heavenly law and he also was the patron saint of policemen, first and foremost.

“Stop analyzing,” Vasquez whispered, but his lips curved up.

“‘’m not analyzing,” Faraday responded and pulled away, forcing his head off its perfect rest to rinse his mouth.

Behind him, Vasquez laughed and pinched his ass in rebuke. “Ask me, if you wanna know, Guero.”

Somehow that betrayed the spirit of the game, but then, the game had irrevocably changed already, hadn’t it?

“Were you a police officer?”

Vasquez stilled, muscles twitching under the warm color of his skin before he forced them to relax with visible effort.

“Yes.” He took a deep breath and curled his hand around Faraday’s hip as if to steady himself.

At the evidence of the effort it took his lover to say this little, Faraday almost pulled back. Then he remembered the feeling of betrayal from the night before and the goose chase Vasquez had sent him on and decided to not be nice just yet.

“And a hacker?”

Vasquez' mouth curled. “Yes, a hacker.”

“You fight well for a nerd.” Faraday eyed him up and down.

Vasquez responded with a grin, a slow comme ci comme ça of his head and finally a shrug that said questioning hour was over.

“Go shower, Guero. Breakfast waits.”

“Ey! Kiss!” Faraday grabbed the back of Vasquez’ pants and pulled him back, stifling Vasquez’ laughter with his mouth.

  


***

 

“I’ve got him in my sight.”

“Alive?”

“And moving.”

Red had not expected to ever look at someone through the scope of a sniper rifle again, yet here he was, staring at the wreck of Bogue’s car and with his scope fixed firmly on the man’s neck.

“Your call, Red.”

Inside the overturned car, head dangling freely, Bogue reached up to release his seatbelt, first with his right hand, then, with an expression of pain, switching to the left.

“He’s fit. I’m taking him out.”

On the periphery of his field of vision, he saw the team’s van nearing as he pulled the trigger and buried the tranq dart into Bogue’s neck.

 

The man twitched once and sank limply into the seatbelt.

Red Harvest squashed the moment of satisfaction not out of some misplaced sense of morality but rather the cold calculation ot the experienced soldier. The moment of silence after the shot sounded the same whether the victim was an angry young Afghan or a rich American criminal and always there was still work to do.

 

The van with Faraday and Vasquez broke the sightline as it pulled up to Bogue’s car, both men unconsciously gravitating towards each other in the front seats, Faraday’s hand unmistakable on Vasquez’ thigh in the passenger seat. Nothing subtle there. Just a little annoying in a cute kind of way that had reminded Red a lot of Shane and his now wife.

Billy had taken it with polite silence and any more self-control than one man ought to possess, watching the landscape on their way to the hills. Though Red bet his nice, soft bed that he was going to trade places with Horne for a seat in Emma’s car on the way back. And who could fault him?

But who could fault Faraday either? Knowing didn’t come always with seeing, but Red’s perceptions had shifted irrevocably the moment Faraday had sided with him like an invisible wall against the world on their first day. Nothing spoken, nothing words easily expressed. They just recognized each other and the trials they had gone through and the paths they had walked to become who they were and possess the skills that made them useful.

Watching Faraday tumble down the stairs that morning, Vasquez on his heels and laughing…

In the scope, Vasquez’ fingers brushed over the hand on his thigh just once before he moved.

 

Shifting his rifle, Red found Billy packed up and ready to move out, the rifle already disassembled beyond recognition, the parts going into the desert, the trash and the ocean, no evidence left behind in case someone started to look.

For now, though, the road remained clear in both directions. Nobody followed Bogue, no secret security detail on his tail, the prostitute having left hours earlier. She had passed the junction onto the state road without incident where by now two cars of the local Sheriff department blocked entrance and a stocky, blond guy with a too wide gait and fat and sugar stains on his uniform told everybody in deepest California drawl that there’d been an accident, flashing slightly crooked front teeth in the way that suggested not to ask any questions.

Faraday had taken one look at him and floored the accelerator which had only made Vasquez laugh harder.

“Professional rivalry,” had been his commentary to Red and his grin caught on the vicious edge in his voice. “Seems, Emma’s people really want us to succeed.”

Billy, on the other side of the woody hillside raised a hand and vanished into the underbrush and that was Red’s sign to move.

They had already loaded Bogue into the van. Horne would check him over for injuries before they plugged him in and the games began.   


 

***  


 

“Extra weapon?” Vasquez asked and carefully tugged the lapels of Sheriff Harp’s worn jacket like a worrying mother.

“I got a knife in my sleeve, Vasquez. Stop fretting,” Faraday retorted and shifted into a more comfortable position on the uncomfortable hospital bed.

The hospital had been a great idea for a first level - it fitted perfectly with Bogue’s real world expectations, lowering his suspicion close to nil, except close to nil still meant extremely suspicious for Bogue and they all had to work around a few very annoying details.

That had ended with Faraday on a bed and Vasquez in the washed out scrubs of a Mexican nurse in the room next to Bogue’s, while Chisolm and Emma played the good little law enforcement officers and Horne the good doctor who tried to convince the patient to just accept the drugs.

Yay, clichés.

Looking up, Faraday dropped the Harp disguise and gave Vasquez a crooked grin. Hell, he couldn’t begrudge him the worry in the least. Bogue’s paranoia didn’t bode well for the bringer of bad news.

“I’m gonna be fine, V.” He curled his right over Vasquez’ left smile dimming in light of the shadows in Vasquez’ dark eyes.

“He cannot do anything permanent.”

Vasquez' scoff weighted heavily between them, calling Faraday’s bluff in light of his own lingering scars but Faraday never got the chance to lighten that load with the tease prickling on the tip of his tongue.

Red slipped in, outfit the same as Vasquez’ though he moved a lot more naturally among the projections - also: invisible. The little shithead. He needed a lot of training to become a regular forger but with that trick alone, he could make millions on the market.

“He’s down,” he said and moved to release the locks on Faraday’s bed, leaving it to Faraday to slip under the blanket and turn into the victim of an accident, unconscious and bruised and all.

“Good luck,” he whispered and caught a last glimpse of Vasquez’ wolf-sharp smile.  

 

***

 

Sheriff Harp had never told his lover that he would be fine facing off with Bartholomew Bogue. Maybe Harp, the bookkeeper had, but he wasn’t here either.

Sheriff Harp fiddled nervously with the hat in his hands, his eyes flitting left and right, up and down to evade Bogue’s evil gaze.

In dreams, men became so much more themselves and Bogue, compared to the coldly calculating but charming man out there, was a complete psychopath.

“...and that I’d be a coward?” Harp flinched as his boss’ voice singsonged softly from the fireplace, where Bogue stood,  a worldly statesman, well versed with culture and power. Nero in the Colosseum.

“Uh... If you didn’t come to Rose Creek. Yes, sir.”

“He said his name was Chisolm?”

“Sam Chisolm,” Harp answered, the hat in his hands making another quarter turn.

“From Lincoln?”

“Like the president.”

This he could do. Give out information exactly like a written testament. This was why he was in Bogue’s employ. Information, not thinking, not opinion and so far it had served him well.

At the last second, Joshua Faraday squashed the rising disgust at his own forgery. A minuscule slip immediately covered up with another dip of his eyes.

Bogue didn’t notice. “He name his price?”

“He didn’t have one. Just terms.”

Turning from the fireplace and the numerous plaques and honors displayed above, Bogue stepped towards Harp, hand tapping lightly on the back of the couch as he passed it, his bright eyes flickering in the dim light of oil lamps with an unholy, promising glow. A knowledge that this could end only one way.

“All men have a price. Isn’t that right, Mr. Harp?”

Guilt welled up that was not Faraday’s and was just as resolutely squashed as the disgust. He, too, had a price, but there were some who just didn’t. Chisolm, Cullen, Vasquez - maybe -, Horne, Red for sure. At least, not a price a man like Bogue could understand how to pay.

They had to make him understand, and men like Faraday, who most definitely had a price, existed to enable them.

Harp clutched his hat tighter when Bogue stopped in front of him with both McCann and Denali flanking the Sheriff behind his back only waiting to inflict violence like the good little, militarized projections they were.

At his employer’s thin-lipped smile Harp first wilted, only to take a step forward a moment later and straighten his shoulders in the ultimate show of bravery to plead his case.

  


***

 

Faraday blinked awake to a white ceiling and the feeling of clean starched hospital linen on his skin.

“I’m fine,” he murmured to the bear of a man that hovered above him, as if he hadn’t just jerked awake with a dry heave, clutching his chest where the bullet had pierced his lungs and then his heart, but not clean enough for immediate death. “I’m ok,” he repeated but didn’t refuse the comfort of Horne’s fingers resting with gentle touch against his pulse.

One, two beats to catch his breath, wrestle this feeling of impending doom under control, then he rattled off a long string of numbers, barely leaving Horne time to turn on the recorder… or whatever his dream equivalent of one represented.

Dates. Senseless stamps on plaques. A string of numbers below the head of a shot bison. An oak leaf framed by the words “Aliae acta est.”  

None of them made sense without a frame of reference, but in his mind, they sat technicolor sharp, waiting to be called up again should they need it.

Horne’s memory served only as a second safety layer _should_ something happen to impair Faraday’s memory or render him unavailable.

There was no time to awake completely and give the info to Teddy Q. who held lonely watch outside their van, counting the minutes and checking on Bogue’s health alike.

“And now send me back.” Faraday finished with a flourish and a grin, drawing a slow chuckle from the old doctor.

“Well done, son,” Horne gave him on the way and pushed the button.

 

***

 

“Y no nos metas en tentación, mas líbranos de mal.”

The bittersweet bite of tobacco curled around his tongue, smoke carrying the words into the rafters, flickering in the low sunlight that fell through the holes in the roof like the panicked ring of the bell in the tower.

Putting it back up had been a last minute decision, just something to bridge the time before Faraday returned, before Red Harvest had come galloping into town with the news that Bogue had swallowed the bait.

Something for them to do while they waited, to escape his team’s understanding glances whenever he worried his medallion between his fingers.

And then their Forger had sauntered from the shadows of the imperial saloon, a bottle of whiskey in his left and a smile on his face. Real, as far as Vasquez could tell. Whole.

Had walked up to Vasquez and plucked the cigar from his lips to take a slow drag in lieu of a kiss before he turned to the others and announced with grand fanfare that Mr. Bogue was adequately incensed.

Behind Chisolm’s back, as the man walked away shaking his head,  Vasquez had taken his cigar back and eyed Faraday once over, allowing his fierce grin to soften to let his lover see the worry that lurked behind but he had found nothing amiss. Just Faraday, all masks firmly in place.

Now, awaiting their fate, Vasquez looked past the town he had built, towards the low hill that rose beyond and the dark crown of two hundred men ready for slaughter. He allowed himself just the wisp of a grateful thought, a fleeting grin, that he didn’t have to sit in a saddle today as his eyes skimmed over Faraday’s position, the memory of hot breaths and salt on skin flashing brilliant and fresh in his mind.

 

“...por que tuyo es el reino, el poder y la gloria, por los siglos de los siglos”

 

The sweet smell of burnt raisin permeated the air within the church, like a memory of incense edged into every last corner and when he closed his eyes, Vasquez could imagine the cool stones of his childhood church, Sunday mass with his parents, squabbling with his sister while the priest droned on ahead, God-given patience allowing him to ignore the bickering children.

Heat flickered on the roofs of Rose Creek as he looked outside, a warm breeze caressed his face with the gentle touch of a lover, memories too, a soft longing for something he could no longer have outside his dreams.

“I got nowhere to go,” he had told Chisolm and damn if that wasn’t right. No place, no person.

Vasquez chanced a last glance towards the meadow and the shed where Faraday hid, allowing himself to imagine that the Forger looked back at the church as the bell rang for their last stand.

They hadn’t had a chance to talk about it, about maybe staying in contact, about working together after Vasquez finally managed to sort out his mess. But he already knew, when he left here, if they managed to pull this job off and Faraday went to get his car, Vasquez would follow him. And Faraday would let him.

The bittersweet smoke filled his mouth again and curled into the air in time with his smirk as he pushed away from his lookout with a decisive motion. That was tomorrow. Today they had to wage a war.  

“It’s time!”

Vasquez' voice rang out and all around him, projections fell into panicked action. They responded to his commands like a bunch of scared civilians, eager to please and so dependent on his approval.

Hyper-realism. Other people called that loss of control and the stuff of nightmares.

Instincts he had buried long ago flared with violence, things he had long believed buried, but like his personal Ghost, nothing stayed hidden forever

 

They ran by, faces blurred in movement. Inhabitants of Rose Creek, most of them victims of Bogue that Emma had drawn from memory. Old people, young people, black, white, a few Latino and native faces among them. A few faces, he knew and had added to the mix.

Children ran past towards the convenience store. The little girl with the dark hair and the cornflower dress waved as she saw him. She never spoke these days, aware of his need for secrecy, and in some ways it broke his heart knowing that even his dreams were tainted. Nevertheless, Vasquez’ lips curled up and he lifted his left in response, like the church, like the heat, he missed her.

When she vanished into the shadow of their flimsy shelter, her smaller form gave way to the firm line of Chisolm’s back down the street. One lonely figure set starkly against the backdrop of two hundred men on horses and above him, Red Harvest at his back, a figure out of legends, still as much a tight-lipped stranger to some of them as he had become a friend.

All around Vasquez, the men didn’t breathe a whisper, only the ominous finality of the clack-clack of his rifle cutting through the silence as the last call for battle.

A last touch, a last drag on the cigar between his lips as he loaded it, an unexpected flashback to the weight of a tac vest on his shoulders, Carlos’ laughter in his ears as they had sat in the back of a police van waiting for their signal. Too young, too stupid, too damn hopeful.

A last prayer to the patron of lost causes was cut off by a blood-curdling war cry and the rolling thunder of 200 horses falling into gallop.

  


***

  
  


Five...four...three...two...one...

 

Billy went first, one explosion, then, with enough time for the attackers to swerve towards it, the second.

Hell opened with bang that would do Beethoven proud.

“Wait,” Vasquez murmured to the men around him, speaking as he would to a bunch of spooked horses, holding them back while the men out in the fields opened fire.

That was the trick. Bogue needed to think that the trap lay out there in a minefield full of explosions and that he only needed to get past it, only needed to have his projections rush towards the church and onto the killing field.

 

Down Mainstreet, Chisolm forced his horse around and started to gallop deeper into Rose Creek, marking the path of a second group that tried to flank them. He was the rabbit, the irresistible prey for the pack of hungry wolves Bogue’s mind had coughed up.

A few already followed him into town and got stuck in the “law enforcement alley” between Red, Cullen and Chisolm himself.

 

All that faded into the background, when Faraday came slithering around a corner to Vasquez’ right, still a healthy few yards away, but with a group of Blackstone hot on his heels.

They had taken the shortest way to town, shunning the Mainstreet, and Faraday had been their welcoming committee, shooting a few people off their horses before hightailing towards Vasquez.

Now he turned left, past the church and left the men pursuing him to those inside.

Spitting the stump of his cigar into the sand, Vasquez propped the rifle onto one of the slats boarding up the windows and pulled the trigger.

Shot. Clack-Clack. Shot.

Two men dropped with the routine of a consummate killer.

All around Vasquez rifles bellowed as the good citizens of Rose Creek, imaginary as they were, caught on and started doing what they should.

“Andale!” he yelled, watching Faraday sprint the last meters to safety behind the pile of sandbags and the detonator they had hidden there. The men following Faraday were blown back by an explosion before they had figured out where he had gone.

After that, it devolved into a pile of chaos and desperate shooting on both sides. Faraday blew up the hut and got Billy and his group some needed distraction to pull back to the church.  

They met up again on the open space in front of the entrance, dodging bullets by men who then fell to Vasquez’ rifle.

_“Head to the church!”_

Billy crossed the last gap between the houses that kept him from cover, trusting Vasquez to take care of the Blackstone that followed him. _“Into the church!”_

Only Faraday lingered outside, directing the projections to block the only paths out with the hay wagons, lighting them on fire to cut Bogue’s men off in their chosen slaughter house. For one, glorious moment, he ruled his kingdom of hard packed dirt and his imaginary subjects with the authority worthy of a seasoned soldier, a man who had seen war before and led men through it. A self-assured man who never doubted or hesitated in his judgment.

Even when that judgment insisted on lingering in an open area with dozens of trigger happy projections all around him.

_“Andale!”_

Vasquez didn’t hear the shot. He heard Faraday’s choked off cry of pain, the sound his knee made as it hit the ground.

For a moment, everything slowed, Vasquez registered distantly his own scream. Faraday’s nickname on his lips. McCann’s projection hesitating with his gun half raised, the wish to finish Faraday off warring with his cowardly nature.

And Faraday falling, curving into himself to protect his middle. Falling...falling. It all seemed familiar.

But then the man on the ground raised his head, eyes alight with pain and _resolve_ , already struggling to get his feet under him and Vasquez dropped the rifle and pulled both colts.

 

The first shot caught McCann square in the back and kicked him off his horse. His father would probably be disappointed in Vasquez but some small part of him believed he might have done the same.

He crossed the distance with long strides, alternating the shots. Right shoulder as McCann struggled to his feet. Left shoulder to drive him back. Right chest to stop his momentum.

Heart.

McCann's dead body hit the coffin behind him, a dull thud that snapped time back into place.

And suddenly a dozen projections swarmed around him and Vasquez found himself just as exposed as Faraday had been earlier.

So he just kept shooting and drove them back.

“Are you ok, Guero?”

Bereft of one of their leaders, Bogue’s men retreated and gave them a little breathing room, though that wouldn’t hold for long.

The answer came more jittery than Vasquez would have liked. “So far, so good.”

Not the words he would have liked either, Faraday’s stupid tale of the window washer funny only when it wasn’t one of yours with a bullet in his body.

It took a moment to remember that Faraday couldn’t actually, really, die from the gunshot wound but then Vasquez remembered the cut on his arm, the pain as he had tried to shield Red Harvest from the violence of his own mind.

They probably had a few minutes until the effect trickled through. Horne sat a level above and had his eyes on them, Teddy - who had a lot more than just first aid training - sat with them in the van.

Just bruises. Vasquez shot a man and softly repeated to himself. Just bruises.

He could tend to them later.

 

All around him, the Blackstones finally caught up with what had happened. With the wagons in place, they were locked in a small corral of burning wagons and the devil in their midst with two guns and enough fury in his veins to tear them apart bare handed.

Their only potential saving grace seemed the amount of bullets he had in his guns, except, he had Faraday at his back and Billy right behind him.

“They’re trapped! I’m going!”

Joshua.

Vasquez grinned, took half a turn and aligned their bodies over the meters dividing them to give his partner clear line of sight.

Two people on front of him fell dead.

“Keep shooting, Guerito!”

 

In the car, Faraday had joked about the teams they had formed, how they unwittingly had parted into groups along their lawful alignment.

Now, as Faraday limped out of the church, his left pressing on the wound, colt in his right spitting bullets and Billy on his heels, casually murdering a man that happened to ride too close, Vasquez recognized the secret ingenuity in the setup.

Team Lawless had something that neither Chisolm nor Cullen and probably Red Harvest neither could use: absolute cold-blooded ruthlessness.

Dream or not, good people tended to hesitate to shoot a man in the back and shy away from cold-blooded murder. The three of them had had that driven out of them long ago.

When his colts were empty, Faraday grabbed a rifle from one of the fallen.

 

“Keep shooting, Guerito!”

Down the street, Vasquez caught a glance of Red Harvest dropping his bow to vanish behind the house he stood on. Below him, Chisolm drove them back up the street, blocking the exit for Bogue’s men until the only thing left for them was facing Vasquez, Faraday and Billy.

There was a time for chivalry, for honor, but those never turned the tide as a massacre did.

For the first time, as Faraday next to him - Joshua - put a bullet in a Blackstone’s head, Vasquez knew, they could do this.

 

The high lasted for about two minutes before Vasquez' surety of their victory was shattered by a rebel yell that echoed down mainstreet and drowned out even the shots.

For a moment, he didn’t believe what he was seeing, then Billy at his side ran forward to greet the newcomer with not an ounce of doubt and Vasquez moved with him to meet Goodnight.

 _“Get inside!”_ was their unexpected greeting and all three of them stopped short, Faraday at his side taking the time to shoot a Blackstone agent that peeked around a corner. 

_"He got a god damn gattling gun! He reimagined the worst possible thing short of a dragon!”_

Goodnight jumped off his horse after throwing his rifle with blind trust into Billy’s hands.  _“Inside!”_

 

They had barely began moving when they heard it, the impact of a barrage of bullets on wood and flesh and quickly coming closer.

Vasquez yelled everyone around him into the church and to cover, Faraday stumbling one step ahead of him, just close enough to catch should he fall.

Goodnight and Billy followed close on their heels, side by side and Billy demanding answers.

 

“What do you mean, he reimagined a dragon. Can he do that?”

Inside, Emma’s projections ran around like headless chickens while Vasquez’ already had hit the ground.

Faraday dropped behind cover as the first bullets hit the church.

“Doesn’t matter,” Vasquez yelled back as he threw himself to the ground. “He just di- AAAAAAAH!”

Pain flared immediately, the impact of the bullet jarring his arm and shoulder, tearing the muscle, before the searing fire of the bullet wound itself even registered.

The instincts of the panicked victim who never fully left the torture behind screamed at him to get up and flee, barely held in check by the seasoned law enforcer and ruthless killer he turned into in his dreams. What kept him still beyond that first flare of his instincts, were Faraday’s bright eyes that shone so clearly in the twilight of the charred church and beseeched him to stay down, to stay safe.

Vasquez gritted his teeth with a shuddering breath and nodded to the man he had allowed into his bed and farther into his mind than he had let anybody in more than five years.

Distantly he registered Goodnight’s yelling, Billy’s heavy silence and the screams of the wounded and dead around him, but nothing felt as real as Faraday a few feet away, reloading his guns with bloody fingers and deep worry etched into his face and more.

When the bullets stopped, they relaxed into shuddering unison and for one, impossible moment, Vasquez saw Faraday’s mouth quirk up.

Then reality hit.

 

“Stay down! Stay down!” Goodnight yelled. “They’re reloading!”

Children screamed in the near distance and the sound froze Vasquez. Not real children. Projections. Hyper-reality. The stuff of nightmares.

They were only a minor objective in the grand scheme of things, a subtle, subconscious victory for them if Bogue couldn’t get to them. Hyper-reality.

Vasquez tried to reach out. Too late.

“The children!” Faraday choked out and sprang to his feet _._

Vasquez had only time to yell after him “Guero! No!” but Faraday was already up and out the door.

 

  
***  


 

For all its dry-baked heat, Rose Creek had never reminded Faraday of Afghanistan or Iraq, the countries too different past the most cursory glance.

Now though, as the smell of gunpowder and blood and death suffocated the Southern Californian landscape and panicked screams barely covered the moans of the wounded, he felt starkly reminded of a nightmare that he hadn’t thought he would visit again.

One, he didn’t fear only because, contrary to many, he _felt_ that it was over.

Billy shot one man from the entrance of the church, stupid enough to try and have a go at the running man. Faraday shot another. That killed all the stupidity left outside for the moment

 

Ducking into the convenience store, he still almost shot Chisolm where he frantically worked to open the ledge to the trapdoor, nothing but a shadow swallowing the flickering firelight of the burning walls in the pitch black of his clothing.

“We need to get the children out of here!” he yelled, more uncaring than unaware of the danger he had been in for a moment there. It still took a moment before Faraday pushed away from the table he had used to catch his choppy breath and tumbled forward to help.

For Chisolm, these kids were a part of their setup, a pawn in a complicated strategy game aimed to destroy Bogue. Faraday’s reason just climbed out of the hole, cornflower dress streaked with soot and her face, her pretty little doll face wet with tears and snot.

She didn’t care for Chisolm or whether or not he found out, Vasquez’ safeguards probably overridden by adrenaline and fear.

Before Faraday could even remind himself how very much not real she was, she had climbed into his arms, ignoring the gun in his right hand and his pained wince.

Without much choice, Faraday just grabbed her and ran out the back door, after the Chisolm and the children he herded over the field and away from the monstrosity Bogue’s mind had coughed up.

The girl’s - _Alejandra’s_ \- mahogany eyes stayed glued onto him the whole time, like an unnerving little ghost from a Japanese horror film.

“Something you wanna say?” Faraday rumbled, catching her gaze and her no less unnerving smile.

“You protect him, sí?”

“Who? Vasquez?”

They had reached a safe distance, the projections already gathered up to head for the hills.

The girl clung to him, her head against his shoulder, and held into his neck and vest as if her life depended on it, no sign that she would go willingly.

“You need to get down and go with them,” Faraday even went so far as to sink to a knee and if his side hadn’t hurt before, the sharp stab of pain from his liver reminded him of how little time he had.

Alejandra refused to budge and it was getting ridiculous, made worse by Chisolm’s interested gaze from a little ways off, just out of earshot.

“Protect him!” the girl repeated more forcefully and though Faraday thought he knew exactly who she was talking about, he knew just as surely that he was missing something important.

“Who, Alejandra?”

She untangled her little legs and finally slid to the ground, tiny -too soft- arms lingering around his neck as she whispered into his ear.

“Mi papi.”

Oh shit.

Faraday stumbled to his feet, away from her.

Oh shit.

The angry yell stuck in his throat. She just dropped the bomb and ran off and FUCK Vasquez’ subconscious. What the everliving fuck.

Shit.

 

The word punctuated his steps as he jogged over to an impatiently waiting Chisolm who still seemed far too interested in the whole thing. He didn’t ask, though, because Chisolm was a professional. And a gentleman or something.

Thank fuck. Shit. Faraday wished he was dumb enough to not have understood her words. But even at that Joshua failed.

His thoughts were cut by the howl of bullets cutting through wood and flesh. He cast a last gaze over his shoulder, but the children were long past reach for the gattling.

Only him and Chisolm were still in the open and really needed to run.

  


***

  
  


A stray splinter of wood dug into the back of her flimsy linen blouse, a stray detail so inconsequential among the blood and the dead and the wheezing breaths of the man next to her. As if Bogue had known, he had his gun aimed directly at her position.

Maybe he did. The legends of dreamshare had much more unlikely tales to tell.

The subconscious was a vast and still very unexplored field.

A door gnarled downstairs, right below the flimsy walkway where they sat, she and a dying projection. Alexander Miller, 49. Lost his house and wife to Bogue. An unexplained fire that razed everything he had. In the end, he had jumped off a bridge.

Emma swallowed any sign of fear and held tighter onto her gun.

A day ago, she had greeted the news of Goody’s departure almost with a sense of joy. Not because he was gone, but because it freed a spot on the team other than hiding and protecting the children.

She wanted to fight. She _needed_ to fight, the hatred in her heart not allowing anything else.

Now, though, the knowledge that she was the dreamer pounded louder in her head with every step on the stairway. The gun in her hand quivered, too light to be of use. Too light to still have bullets.

And if she died, her revenge, her dream of being free of Matthew’s ghost, would die with her.

So she raised the gun as her stalker came into view, weather-beaten face and the deep lines of a harsh life pronouncing the cruel cut of his lips until all that Denali seemed capable off was hate.

She pulled the trigger and listen to the empty click, knowing that this was it.

Another click, the fruitless hope that she’d win a round of Russian Roulette with hope, another empty chamber. Another.

She would die.

When the shadow of a man appeared behind Denali, solidifying from nothing like a mirage in the desert, Emma pulled the trigger one last time, staring up at the looming death threat in the form of a man, tomahawk raised…

Denali swirled around at the war cry behind him.

Red Harvest seemed like a ghost himself here, so much more than the subdued, friendly young man with the dry sense of humor who was silent more often than not, to the point where he appeared shy.

Emma knew, of course, that he’d been part of special forces in the army, had known even before she had seen the pin with the crossed arrows on his vest. She had assumed that was what it was and been gently corrected by Chisolm’s young protegé about the real meaning and history behind it.

But now, nothing gentle was left in Red’s eyes as he dashed forward and slashed Denali open with one well-calculated move. Emma might have expected a more even fight, more danger from Denali - even as a projection he remained one of Bogue’s main defenses. Unless Bogue himself had weakened him unconsciously. He hadn’t with McCann. But Denali was… well, he was not white.

Emma turned her face away then, releasing the shuddering breath she had unconsciously held since Red had appeared and buried her face in the hair of the now dead projection next to her, their hands still intertwined.

Alexander Miller, 49.

She had believed she knew why she did this. Justice. Revenge. Because it was her job.

Arthur had warned her of consequences she had no way of understanding before - before now, before seeing how her revenge might destroy her, too.

Yet, they had let her do it.

She found Red Harvest’s gaze. He didn’t comment on her tears, just nodded in acknowledgment.

The thrill of the fight, the excitement of the one who had never really seen war long evaporated.

But the pain remained, for now.

Emma forced herself to smile.

The resolve remained. For now.

They were still alive. For now.

She gently pushed Alexander Miller’s body to the side.

That meant there still was a fight to win.

For now.

Red Harvest nodded again and walked down the stairs. He hadn’t said one word.

 

***

 

“You ok there?”

Faraday pressed his hand onto his side, back resting against the wall of their makeshift cover and winced.

“Yeah,” he croaked and closed his eyes to breathe through the soft vertigo of blood loss. Countdown was ticking. Always face the curtain with a bow and all that jazz. “Might need a new vest though.”

Chisolm snorted a low chuckle and twisted his head as if to see who had died when a sordid scream was cut off by the sound of the bullets.

“Damn, we gotta do something ‘bout that gun.” Faraday spoke Chisolm’s thoughts, half a plan forming with the words. If the teacher was down from the tower, then Goody was up there. And with him, probably, Billy.

And down here, it was either Chisolm - who they needed for Bogue, Emma - who held the dream, Vasquez - who held the projections at bay or…

“Listen, Faraday. About Vasquez? I didn’t try to fool you." Chisolm dropped back down and fixed his eyes on Faraday. "Still, I owe you an apology.. “

 _Now_ of all times.

“Fuck that.” After last night, Faraday knew enough about Vasquez to understand and everything else was between them now.

Like the Mexican’s scream as he’d been hit by the bullet and the pain that had spread behind Faraday’s ribs at the agony on his face. Or a little girl in a cornflower dress with mahogany eyes and a pair of tousled braids.

Shit.

“But yeah, a’right.” Maybe it was the pain that had Faraday fall into the voice of his birthplace. “You owe me somethin'.”

Digging his fingers deeper into his side and the makeshift bandage that kept the hole plugged, Faraday gripped his gun tighter.

“What’s that?” Chisholm asked not without suspicion. Faraday pondered mentioning a house on the Bahamas but the joke fell too flat.

He’d see them on the other side.

He would.

“Cover,” he answered and let his mask drop for a moment, let the pain and the fear shine through his bravado, as if this really were their last shared moment.

 _Do your thing with Bogue,_ he wanted to say, _and do it well to rid the world of this monster, because if_ we _can’t do, then what is any of this worth the fight. If we don’t hunt the monsters then who will. And I can’t. But I can clear a path for you._

His head swam with many more words, each just as sappy and owed to the instinctual fear of a dying body, he didn’t say any of them, just pressed his lips tightly in a non-smile, an exact mirror of Chisolm’s and waited for the go.

 

They came out of the woodwork like two angels of war to rid the world of evil, screaming and shooting everything that moved, caught halfway across by the safety of Vasquez’ covering fire and the sharp crack of two rifles from above.

Faraday grabbed the first horse that crossed his path, the wound numbed by slowly spreading cold, enough to not hobble him as he swung up on the horse and tore the reins around, towards the field, towards the hill and their death.

 

“Andale, Guero!” Vasquez voice carried him, unknowing of what he was about to do, but supportive nevertheless.

Boyfriend material.

Behind, guns and a rifle cracked and Faraday rode.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Interesting knowledge bit: 
> 
> The crossed arrows symbol that Special Forces officers wear was originally the symbol of the Indian scouts and is still used as a general symbol of Native American veterans to this day.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fair warning: A character recounts the death of children.  
> I am evil.  
> I'm sorry.  
> Also, don't drink when you have a liver injury and are heavily medicated.  
> Dammit Faraday!  
> Dammit Vasquez!
> 
> A NOTE: 
> 
> If you have read the chapter before, you will notice a new scene at the end of it.  
> I always felt there was a little something missing, tying everything together.  
> The beginning, Sam's and Emma's quest and, of course, Vasquez. I just never seemed to manage to hit the right note, the right feeling, the right setting. 
> 
> And then, one morning, I walked into work, sat down at my computer and had an image in front of my eyes of Vasquez doing the possibly hardest thing for him in leaving Faraday behind with Horne, entrusting his safety to someone else because he still had a job to do.  
> Well, here we are. Suddenly, it all makes sense and ties from start to finish and back again. 
> 
> If you haven't read this chapter yet: Have fun.

Riding into Rose Creek with a rebel yell had felt cathartic, the 1873 Winchester a weird but not unfamiliar weight in his hands, dispensing death to people Goodnight had to force himself to remember were not real. Seeing Billy had been a homecoming, more so than the sudden hope in Sam’s eyes. It had been right, to save them, to take command and to back up Vasquez in the momentary chaos.

No doubts had clouded his thoughts for a whole glorious few minutes. For once, his being and his thinking had aligned and loudly proclaimed “This!”.

Looking down now, at Billy’s dark eyes, automatically catching the rifle he threw up with not an ounce of hesitation, Goodnight suddenly regretted. Nothing in particular, just the old specter of something he wished he still were and still could be and not the broken shell of other people’s wars that Billy had had no interest in ever.

But there was no time, not with Bogue’s monstrosity ready at any moment. That didn’t stop him from trying.

“Shit, Billy…” I’m sorry I left. I’m sorry, I came back. I’m sorry that I dragged you into all of this. Sam’s problems. Dreamshare. Mine.

Billy had asked him to go, to pull back and protect his far too fragile mind, yet here they were with their backs pressed tightly against sandbags as they loaded their rifles and instead of being angry, Billy smiled.

“I knew you’d come back.” Not an iota of doubt.

“Oh, you did, did you?” Goodnight looked over just to see Billy’s grin grow. “How’d you know that?”

He did not expect his flask in Billy’s hand.

“You left this.”

Goodnight’s lips twitched up. But then, he was right. Goodnight did leave it behind. A reminder and a promise and as always, Billy had understood better than Goodnight himself could hope to.

 

_“I am on my way to kill a man. It’s what I do.” They had sprawled over the hood of Goody’s car in a comfortable state of undress and watched the sunrise over the Arizona desert. A joint had switched hands in amiable silence, Billy’s words not a disturbance of the good company they shared but rather an extension._

_“Do you want to?” Goody had asked, unperturbed, and taken a deep lungful of the warm heaviness, thinking how beautiful Billy’s laugh might sound without the bitter desperation._

_“No. I want to die, not do it. Nobody will come after me then.”_

_That had been when Goodnight had looked over and searched the man’s face. The little cut in his lip, not from the brawl the night before, but from Goodnight’s kisses as he had fucked the beautiful Korean with a hunger and desperation that had bordered on fear that he might vanish._

_“I might.” As if suddenly a promise of purpose had re-entered his life and a sliver of light peeked over the horizon that spoke of a coming dawn he hadn’t believed in._

_“Why? What’s it worth to you.” No bitterness in Billy’s words, only a deep tiredness._

_Goodnight had looked away then and handed the joint back to his unexpected companion, searching for words to express the unspeakable that he hadn't even made Sam understand yet._

_“What is a man worth to anybody, Mr. Rocks?” Goodnight had smiled. “I am worth so much to many, my abilities a wealth of gold to those who wish to use them. And I...”_

_Billy snorted. “I don’t know you.”_

_“Exactly and yet we spent a very pleasant night, far from the weights this world has hefted onto our shoulders.” Their eyes met over the heady smell of the drugs and Billy’s lips curled up in a silent dare for Goodnight to keep talking. He was not much for speaking, this Mr. Rocks. “I think, I would always come for you, Billy.”_

_“Who comes for you, Goodnight?”_

_“Oh, everybody, really. Fame is a sarcophagus.” Goodnight had waved it off and missed the point entirely. Billy was too clever to just mindlessly echo phrases back at people._

_“And who lets you be?”_

_Nobody, had been the answer, not even his best friend Sam with his never ending demands that Goodnight let someone try and fix his broken mind._

_The last time he had sat like this with Sam had been years ago, two young and idealistic soldier out to better themselves and the world. Not Sam’s fault, entirely. Not Goodnight’s, either. They just carried scars and those scars had carried them in different directions._

_“Touché.” Goodnight stole the joint and a kiss from the beautiful bastard at his side and eyed the sunrise ahead, his voice far from steady as he began to hum._ “Freedom’s just another word for….nothing left to lose…”

_Two unwilling killers setting out through the South had probably not been on Janis Joplin’s mind as she sang those lines. But then, the truth in poetry always lay in the eyes of the beholder._

_Lucky, really, that Billy liked to hear him sing._

 

They shared a laugh, up in that bell tower and once more resolve chased away the rest. Goodnight knew he was in a dream, he knew with blinding clarity that he had not dreamed of a future where wagons drove themselves and men walked in shared dreams. In that moment, he knew.

Below them, Vasquez yelled a warning. Out on the street, Blackstones came crawling out of the woodwork like rats smelling a dying body.

“All right.” He loaded a bullet into the chamber. “Let’s do this.” Because this was what he did.

Next to him, Billy bared his teeth and rolled to his feet with the inborn grace of the natural predator.

“Yeah!”

Bodies dropped in the street with each of their shots, caught from several sides with Sam and Faraday to the left driving them.

He knew about the slight hearing damage that the desert of Iraq graced him with and maybe that was why he didn’t hear the chack-chack-chack of the Gatling firing at first, not until it almost got them. The sound of a ricochet off the church bell was unmistakable, though, and weirdly, he heard the impact of the bullet on flesh, Billy’s aborted gasp loud and clear. That was before everything dissolved into static.

Slow-motion, scream-filled static.

“Billy…” Did he say that? “I need the flask.”

_Tell me, this is a dream._

Billy gasped instead, the attempt to reach for Goodnight’s totem aborted the moment the smell of blood-drenched whiskey filled the small space they occupied.

He knew.

“This reminds me of something my daddy used to tell me…,” Goodnight spoke before the thought had fully formed, breaking off when it came to actually speaking it.

“What?” Most likely his partner had not intended to sound that annoyed. Most likely he had to fight for every last of his breath with a bullet lodged this close to his heart, left arm limp to conserve the pain and still keep the rifle still to be reloaded.

“Well...my daddy used to have bad acrophobia, yet when our house burned, he stepped onto the balcony with me, despite rather braving death in the flames.”

Goodnight pushed the last bullet into his rifle and loaded it into the chamber. “Love is not a noun, he always said.”

Goodnight hadn’t used a pistol in years; it felt wrong to every fiber of his being, screaming at him the truth. _Not a dream, Not a dream._ Feeding him pictures from his real dreams, the ones where he shot his friends in the waking world. The true nightmares of what his existence had become.

Down below, shots bellowed and he heard Sam’s and Vasquez’ voices over the commotion, screaming for cover fire.

Billy next to him slowly turned his head, unashamed of the impossible red of his lips and Goodnight smiled.

“Love is an action.”

“Goody…”

The bullet hit Billy square between the eyes because it didn’t matter whether they woke up after this, their fingers still intertwined as Goodnight had left, or woke in some dubious afterlife that neither of them knew how to navigate, it didn’t matter, Goodnight would wake up and Billy would be there.

He took his rifle and grabbed Billy’s with a cry of war, rolling to his feet in the motion. Down below Faraday and Sam turned around the corner, behind them a handful of men. Goodnight took a deep breath and did what he did best in this world or any other and started to shoot.  

Down below their crazy idiot of a Forger commandeered a horse and carried his own brand of bravery across the field as he swerved in a wide curve towards the Gatling, carrying with him Goodnight’s yells of encouragement and the thrill of a fight the sharpshooter hadn’t felt in a long time. Joy. Maybe even hope that this was not the end, that, for once, crippling fear could be subdued in the face of overwhelming adversity and justice, for once, rang with poesy instead of burdening guilt, buoyed by his rifle that blazed a path for the riding madman.

Of course, they’d turn the machine on him first. He was the point man and his job was to protect his dreamers.

The impacts were felt, pushing him backward towards the ledge, through the railing, towards his inevitable demise. The second before he fell, he managed to cast a last glance at Billy’s body, a last goodbye. He found nothing but the charred wood of the church and fell with a relieved laugh.

 

***

 

The memory of how the bones splintered on impact faded quickly as he jerked up and was caught against the living body next to him, fingers tightening over his.

Goodnight opened his eyes to Billy’s beautiful face, worry edging into his skin like fine engravings into a piece of art.

“I love you,” Goodnight said and shifted up onto his elbows to brush a kiss between his partner’s brows, not a damn given about Teddy’s wide-eyed stare or the bodies of the others, not even for the sounds of distress that came from Faraday.

He brushed aside the open neck of Billy’s button down shirt and found the forming deep tissue bruise, palest blue under angry red. It was not hard to see how Billy favored his left, even as he raised it to card through Goodnight’s hair.

“Oh, Goody...”

Goodnight breathed an open-mouthed kiss to the discolored skin and reached for the flask Billy offered him, just too aware that his dream version was no longer whole.

 

_***_

 

""¡Cabalga, Hijo de puta! ¡Por favor, CABALGA MÁS RÁPIDO!"

Vasquez ran out of the church and picked up the colt of a fallen Blackstone agent, shooting another with it as he passed him.

There was not much left, neither of them nor of Chisolm’s team. He had heard Goodnight fall and no sign of Billy.

Emma must still be alive, but Vasquez had yet to see Red Harvest. He was sure about Chisolm though. Their paths converged in front of the church, just a moment as they saw Faraday off and before their leader headed deeper into town and left Vasquez behind at his post, alone, all of a sudden.

Alone with the silence and dead bodies in dry desert heat and a friend he watched die. Not fast enough.

“Ride, Guero…,” he whispered, recounting in his mind the time since Faraday had gotten shot, Horne’s words a Damocles sword over them: “Wounds that kill a dreamer, just plain kill him. The wounds that don’t, usually aren’t that bad. Bruises.”

Unless Faraday. Because Faraday. Because Faraday had likely never done an expected thing in his life.

Just as Vasquez set out to move and find a horse to follow him, twin shots rang out. Every other man would have somersaulted off the animal from the force of impact alone. Faraday needed a third, much closer rifle shot to even fall.

“Come on, Guero….” Vasquez didn’t even know whether he hoped the man would get up again or stay down.

When one second ticked by and nothing moved, then a second, he almost hoped that Faraday had been kicked.

They still had the Gatling to deal with, but at least...

“Guero… no…” Nobody alive around him heard the words as he watched Faraday crawl back to his feet after the eternity of five seconds. Stubborn bastard, stubborn, stupid idiot that he was.

Vasquez squeezed his eyes shut and tore them open when the next shot rang out. Not knowing was worse. His mind had too many pictures to fill the blankness with.

Projections limped and stumbled past him now, the few that were still left, ran out of the church as if they knew that the Gatling was no threat to them at this moment, as if they felt, through their creators, how the dragon was tamed by one heroically stupid knight who insisted on facing everything alone. Even this.

And that had to stop.

Said Vasquez, who had lived off paranoia and the memories of pain for more than five years and learned that instant punishment was the result of letting anybody in if he let up. Said it and meant it.

This time, as Faraday fell he stayed down. Kneeling, like a condemned man, swaying like the grass around him, pushed back and forth in rhythm with the wind. A man awaiting his execution and here, in the ruins of the town, surrounded by corpses, stood and swayed the man who prayed he would just, painlessly die.

Forgotten was the weapon Vasquez still held in his right, too far to shoot, only watching and witnessing Faraday’s last cigarette and how he listlessly sunk forward, body finally giving in.

Six bullets, that’s how much it took to get Joshua Faraday down.

By God, Vasquez could love that ma...

Out in the field, Faraday sat up, presenting the stick of dynamite in his hand like a very dramatic birthday candle and Vasquez laughed, wiping a wet speck off his cheek- maybe blood, maybe not- he threw back his head and laughed.

“Hijo la puta, cábron.”

Vasquez turned away when Faraday threw the dynamite and went to find a horse.

He needed to make sure that the bastard was dead himself.

And then he needed to punch him and get him naked and see that he didn’t bleed out in internally.

Because he really, really couldn’t…

 _"Rafito...,"_ the past croaked as Vasquez swung up on the next best Blackstone horse, Sombra safely tucked away with the others. No more ghosts, he promised himself. No more shadows shackled to him by too much memory and too much love. He had laid Carlos to rest and let him go by the sheer grit of his promise to survive. _"One out of two isn't bad if you had no chance, to begin with, hermano."_

He had died with a smile, going with the peace of knowing that he had wasn’t the one who had to live with the memory and watch it repeated with a gambler who might have said the exact same thing. "One in two isn't bad."

Surprise. Two out of two was the only acceptable outcome, Guerito. No more sacrifices.

 

***

 

Sam Chisolm remembered a life that had been like his ex-wife still dreamed, wide planes and green grass, flowers and birds and a squeaking swing seat on the porch. His own dreams never were like this and maybe this was what she talked about when she said he needed her to remind him that not everything was work. She surely wasn’t wrong.

 

“Hark! 'tis the Shepherds voice I hear

Out in the desert dark and drear…”

 

Watching Bartholomew Bogue ride into town past the burnt church and the graveyard, Chisolm smiled and reloaded his revolver. This was exactly why he needed Eliza and probably Goodnight, too, who had turned into her best and worst enabler. Getting him to Washington for his son’s birthday, when said son had left on the evening of the first to go camping with his friends…

Maybe he had needed that reminder that not everything was an inevitable end to a predictable story.

 

“Calling the sheep who’ve gone astray,

Far from the Shepherd’s fold away.”

 

When they had forced Bogue into the rigid rule set of this dream, they hadn’t quite planned for such a show of force on his side and it had cost them dearly. Goody and his boyf… Billy were already gone. Sam hadn’t yet heard Vasquez gun go off, so hopefully, their point man didn’t have to shoot his newfound lover. The man had enough to deal with already.

The cylinder clicked shut with a decisive flick of Chisolm’s hand.

 

“Bring them in, bring them in,” Outside, Bogue flinched.

“Bring them in from the fields of sin;”

 

His mama had loved the song. Loved, how it was about acceptance and forgiveness.

But first, to be forgiven and be lifted up… a man needed to be broken down by God.

 

“Bring them in, bring them in,

Bring the wandring ones to Jesus.”

 

Bogue’s last two projections stalked into the undertaker’s office, weary of the crazy man singing in the shadows. How right they were. How dead, as they fell back outside, cut down by the wrath of the righteous.

Sam Chisolm still believed, despite everything, likely even because of everything, because that had been the one thing from his family they could not kill. He did not, though, believe in the way of the good and sheltered that the meek would inherit the earth.

The sun glared down from the clear sky with unforgiving fervor as Sam Chisolm, senior FBI Agent, stepped out onto the street.

Almost a blessing, if he thought on it a moment.

Chisolm hadn’t thought on anything else for hours and now, as the moment neared, his lips stretched into a smile.

Righteousness…

Bogue stood, his feet a shoulder width apart, like an animal ready to bolt. Even the gun in his hand seemed foreign on his surprisingly slim frame. He looked to be more likely to throw it, than to shoot, although Chisolm knew from the files that was not the case. Bartholomew Bogue remained a man full of dangerous surprises. He had proven that over and over within the dream, yet, he was no Sam Chisolm and alone on a deserted street in the man’s worst nightmare, the Extractor had the upper hand.

He had him.

Chisolm holstered his gun.

Finally.

Alone, Bartholomew Bogue suddenly didn’t seem so big anymore.

“Chisolm…?” Bogue’s face twitched as he quivered through the words and cocked his gun. “Should I know the name?”

26 years and 9 months ago, a half-grown boy had cowered in the mud of a riverbed, his blood covered hands clutching his neck and whispered his way through the same words over and over. Psalm 144, verses 1 and 2. One and two. Who trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle.

Now, Sam Chisolm’s smile fell. “You will know it from your obituary.”

Bogue had gotten far with mind games and deflection, a master of gaslighting in everything he did. In the weeks running up to this day, while the others had planned and prepared, Chisolm had watched every interview, read every court document, town hall meeting that included a shred of words from Bogue.

_‘What do you plan to do to mitigate the danger of your fracking operations to the surrounding communities, Mr. Bogue?” “American communities need jobs, they need businesses, and that is something we need to work on and I promise…’_

Are you sure that I wronged you? Isn’t it rather you, who is in the wrong?

His voice held nothing new when he nodded now, slowly and with a thoughtful “Hm...”

“We connected, somehow?”

“14th of October, 1990. Did you hire a group of bikers connected to the Klan to scare citizens off their rightfully owned land in Kansas?”

Bogue’s only reaction to the accusation remained an annoyed roll of his eyes, his expression settling on aloof boredom.

“Trailer trash.”

“Good people, trying to make a life for themselves,” Chisolm retorted, stonefaced act slipping for a moment. “like these people here.”

It didn’t matter whether or not Bogue had ever seen victims of his in the citizens of Rose Creek. They were there and through their connected subconscious he would pick up the information from Emma Cullen and fill in the rest.

He just didn’t care, didn’t connect his actions to any negative impact for himself. Any society existed through a defined set of rules that determined who was part of that society and who would be shunned. A lot of abhorrent behaviour was thwarted by a human’s instinctive fear to be outcast. Yet, there always existed a subset of people who did not experience that fear.

It said something about Faraday that he had penned Bogue so soon and instinctively understood the remedy. Fear. Terror. Bogue’s weapons turned onto himself.

“If God didn’t want them sheared, he wouldn’t have made ‘em sheep.”

A shot and Bogue would be dead. Just one shot. Chisolm knew he was fast.

But a shot wouldn’t destroy the man. A shot just meant that he’d succeeded in riling Chisolm up to breaking point. That he’d won once more.

And nothing but utter destruction would do.

‘Why?’ A boy of fourteen had screamed at the doctors and nurses, trying to reach his wounds. ‘Why?’ They had sedated him.

Nothing in Rose Creek came close to October in Kansas, except Sam Chisolm. He carried that day with him and more. He carried with him an arsenal that he had stocked up. He had faced down terrorists, had walked in the dreams of psychopaths and the most traumatized. He had shot, killed and saved people.

If God hadn’t wanted Bartholomew Bogue torn down, he wouldn’t have given Sam Chisolm the tools. Good aim, good men, a strength of character that had been born from blood.

It all culminated in the simple knowledge that Bart Bogue couldn’t stand the silence.

The moment he understood that he could not manipulate Chisolm, he would make the mistake of acting, blind to the knowledge that, no matter what he did…. He had already lost.

Down the street and out of sight, Red Harvest stood, weapons at the ready, waiting for his moment. Out in the field, Vasquez had probably just found the crater where Faraday blew himself up. And if all of those were not enough, Emma Cullen still had a lot of Projections and a lot of rage to her freshly broken heart.  

But looking at him now, standing alone, no projections, no shimmering glass tower and money and lies to hide behind…

Sam’s lips curved and Bogue lost it.

The bullet hit Bogue’s colt before he could fire.

In the end, Chisolm had walked too many dreams to not know how to sharpen his skills to the maximum without breaking the fabric of this “reality”.

“Now…” His smiled had died back into the forced neutrality of the interrogator. “Pick it up.”

Every emotion he felt had drawn tightly behind his ribs, the love he had grown up to, the terror and the immeasurable grief, everything tied together by years and years of anger, they all galvanized into an impossible tangle of furor as Bogue danced around in pain, clutching his hand tightly to his chest. Rumpelstilzkin in disbelieve.

“Come one,” Chisolm ordered, reinforcing his words with a nod towards Bogue colt on the ground. “Pick it up. Pick it up.”

Bogue curled inward, rather bearing the humiliation than facing the music he had written the tune to.

“PICK IT UP!” Chisolm’s scream echoed down the street and like the coward he actually was, Bogue reacted. Had found something worse to fear in Chisolm’s rage.

He didn’t even get to touch the weapon when Chisolm shot again and drove it out of his reach.

Bogue turned and ran. Towards the church and the steps.

Luxury Rebecca and Anna had not had. Or his mother.

Two last steps was more mercy than any of Sam’s family had had before he put a bullet in Bogue’s leg.

He remembered another man he had come for. A man already wounded, alone, desperate and betrayed. Who had not run, but faced both Chisolm and Cullen with his weapons drawn, taking every chance he didn’t have. And that was why Vasquez was on his team and Bogue….

Bogue crawled up the stairs like a hyena whose back had been broken. Rolling over like a dog showing his belly inside.

“In nomine patres… et spiritus…” He crossed himself as if it meant something and screamed the words into the church as if _that_ meant something.

Sam’s mother had screamed, too, and had begged, for the men to save her babies, to please just save her children and she would do everything for them.

Above Sam, the burned out steeple stood lonely and empty, no sign of Goodnight or Billy. No word from God either.

“You’re a God fearing man. Huh?” Bogue couldn’t quite keep the triumph out of his voice or his face when Sam took off his hat for a moment of god fearing contemplation.

Nothing broke a man like destroyed hope.

Give him this.

He put the hat back on and straightened his vest and stepped after Bogue.

Not in haste, or urgency. There was no urgency, not anymore.

The timer on the PASIV ticked down slowly with 15 minutes left in the dream after the advance warning rang. Fifteen minutes had almost been the entirety of the firefight.

Sam could grant himself the luxury to watch Bogue crawl like a worm.

“Please, just leave!” To hear him gasp in fear and pain on the floor in front of him as he crawled towards the leftovers of the altar. Faster and faster again with a little kick from his pursuer.

“Leave me be, please!”

Just a little one, though. Bogue was a free man, free to set his own pace to damnation. Freedom was important, was it not?

“Please!” Finally, the maggot on the floor heaved himself up the steps to where the pulpit should have stood like the first fish had crawled out of the sea.

“I beg your pardon,” he panted, no, outright pleaded. “I’ve done you wrong.” And even now, Bogue was a masterful actor, his remorse, and desperation almost shockingly real. Could have fooled anybody who had never seen true desperation.

“I want you to pray with me.” Sam extended his hand as a gesture of hope. God would forgive him this once, for leaving him out of this. “Well? Come on.”

And hope bloomed on Bogue's face as he clutched Sam’s hand, holding onto his side of the charade, of the chastised sinner.

“Pray for forgiveness,” Sam offered.

“Just close your eyes,” he added and kneeled next to Bogue when the man didn’t dare to look away as if he still awaited the executioner. “And you pray.”

He wasn’t wrong, after all.

Sam bent down to him, taking in every pore, every drop of sweat that glistened on the chalky face with the bulky eyes - so harmless, an ill-meaning kobold out for some pranks -terrified of the simple human that caught him.

Because he knew. Bartholomew Bogue remembered Lincoln, Kansas. A small community a little way outside the actual town. Trailers, simple houses, people who tried to move away from the crime-ridden inner cities and maybe get a touch of the hope and safety the suburbs promised for their children. People fallen on hardship, women widowed like his mother. Just people. Nothing especially great about them and surely nothing bad.

Bartholomew Bogue remembered the church secretary who had organized these people in the age old tradition of resistance against the ill-meaning and mighty. Or her friends. He remembered the water supply that had been cut off, the waste disposal that suddenly wasn’t working anymore. The men that had shown up in town and started following people, complimenting them on their pretty young daughter's looks or their boy’s great throwing arm that might get him out of there if only nothing happened to them.

“Pray for my mother,” Chisolm whispered and bent closer. “That your men threw into the river as “mercy” so she could be with her children.”

Give him hope and then destroy him. “Go on, pray.” No mercy colored Chisolm’s voice now. “You pray.”

He watched understanding dawn on Bogue’s face and let go of him to loosen the tightly bound scarf around his neck.

“Pray for my two sisters, that your men murdered. That they pushed off an icy road and into a river, their bodies already crushed before the car they sat in broke through the water. Did they pray when the metal cut my body and the glass shards into my neck? Did they pray I’d possess the last ounce of strength to make it to the shore? Did they pray then?”

Understanding dawned in Bogue’s eyes and along with it, hope once more, to turn around this situation.

“I remember...Chisolm.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I remember.”

_MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH, the truck!_

Anna had still been too young to understand what was happening, but Rebecca had seen it coming before the other car had slammed into their old Ford; on the back left, where the child’s seat was and pushed them down the embankment. The said that Becky had been dead on impact, her small body not made to withstand so much force. Sam had wanted to believe it, carrying enough self-awareness to just accept the false memories the information might create. There was no difference to be made there, only for him in the easier weight of the burden. He remembered nothing until his fingers clutched around a low hanging branch and the pain of frozen muscles reawoke the awareness that shock and sudden blood loss had stolen.

He wished, he hadn’t. His mother’s screams were real. Still were.

Hit and run accident. A tragic occurrence but no malice said the police.

And now Bogue said, he remembered. Maybe he did. Likely he did. The whole thing had garnered enough attention. But Bogue didn’t remember the terror in Becky’s eyes. He didn’t remember the screams of Sam’s mother. The finality of her body hitting the water and the laughter of the men.

“I said, pray!” Sam snarled and tore the scarf off, sturdiest linen, tight and unforgiving in his hand as he looped it around Bogue’s neck and twisted it tight. And now, finally, he saw the same terror in Bogue’s eyes that he remembered from his sister’s.

“Our Father…,” he recited, taking in the smallest twitch of Bogue’s face.

“Killing me won’t give you the satisfaction you want!”

“... who art in heaven.” Sam’s voice sank to a growl. “Hallowed be Thy name.”

Bogue didn’t understand, this wasn’t about giving Bogue satisfaction. Seeing him flinch in the real world whenever someone mentioned his victims, whenever someone said “Lincoln” would.

“Say it,” Sam hissed. Teach him, how true helplessness felt when you fought against certain death but you could impossibly succeed because someone had stacked the odds against you.

“‘Thy kingdom come.’ Go on.” He wanted to be motivating, promise Bogue an out of his misery, ultimate surrender. Sam wanted to hear him beg for his own death like Sally Chisolm had done.

He wanted to see him choke to death and beg until his last breath.

“Come on.”

He wanted to watch Bogue break.

The shot rang out in the shadowed room with subdued finality, as if it didn’t dare echo among the bodies of the men who had died here and the memory of all those for whom this church stood.

Sam understood immediately the mistake he had made, going off like this, losing his distance like this. Of course, Bogue had a last ace up his sleeves and now...

But there was no pain. It didn’t come, not even as he waited and checked. It was Bogue’s body in his hands that went lax, tilting to the side with his eyes glassing over and the breaths, the gasping breaths, and chokes turning torturous before they stopped.

A gun clattered to the floor from his hand, a small pistol, like a man might wear as a last protection.

As he turned, Sam found Agent Cullen standing in the door, rifled slowly lowering towards the ground and her red-rimmed eyes fixed on the one satisfaction she, either of them, could ever truly have. Bogue would survive. He would be rescued from his car and transported to a hospital where he would receive the very best care that money could buy and his victims would have to stand by and watch, once again, as he went free.

Unless someone used their god-given gifts and stopped it.

“Amen.”

Sam’s hat had gathered a bit of soot and dust when he grabbed it off the floor and he took a moment to clean it off when he pushed to his feet, his gaze lingering past Emma’s shoulder until he stood by her and forced himself to find the deep compassion and understanding in her eyes.

So, she had heard. 

She had cried, maybe still did. That grief would abate with time, become a scar on her heart bearing her husband’s name, but hopefully, it would never hinder that heart from beating as it had with Sam, defining waking and sleeping moments and decisions that should probably have been made with different end goals in mind.

And as she looked at him, nothing but the rifle between them they had killed the monster in their closet with, a spark of understanding lit in her eyes.

Still, it was his burden to bear. His hands curled around the rifle and gently took it from her.

“Our work is done, Agent. Time to go home and do the rest.”

Emma drew a deep breath, then another, and looked past him one last time. Sam didn’t check if Bogue’s body still lay there.

She nodded and turned away.

“Do you think it took?”

Sam walked out into the far too bright sunshine and squinted down Mainstreet towards the two men waiting there. He smelled the heavy scents of gunpowder and blood that marred the Californian landscape and he didn’t even try to stop the little smirk that formed at the thought that this was what Bogue would get thrown back to every time he thought about the people he had wronged.

“We will see.”

His men looked at him with the trusting calm of seasoned veterans, even Vasquez, who Sam had expected to at least protest as Sam pulled his colt. But neither flinched as he shot first them and then Emma and last, with a glance towards the church, himself.  

 

***

 

Leaving Joshua in the hands of Horne and Billy, needle in his arm and his desperate sounds of pain filling the car was one of the hardest things Vasquez had ever done in his life. Not the hardest, just...

His fingers had caught on the sweat soaked line of his hair and under his lips, Faraday's forehead had tasted of salt. There was no mistaking the dark mottling on his body for anything but the impacts of the bullets he had taken and his pained whimpers as what they were. Not cries anymore. Vasquez had pondered leaving his medallion but in the end, he had gotten up and walk away, gotten his laptop bag and climbed into Chisolm's car with no fuss, no words, no nothing.

They saw him worried - he caught Emma's glances in the rearview mirror - but in control.  

By now, Red and Horne would be long gone from the scene, driving Faraday back to the house instead of the hospital as Horne had wanted to do. With as fickle as he was about knowing what was going on in his surrounding, Faraday wouldn't take kindly to unknown medical settings. Teddy hopefully had finished his task and was not far behind.

Only Billy and Goodnight stayed behind to watch Bogue and the rescue works waiting to be picked up on a side road by Vasquez' group on their way back.

Goodnight’s idea, not their’s.

As the beautiful mountain woods streamed silently past the windows of the car, Vasquez stared at his shaking hands, every tremor aggravating the pain in his arm where he could feel the swelling this grow, and finally allowed himself to let it bleed out. 'It' the unspeakable horror that Faraday had unknowingly awoken with his stupid bravery, not once but twice.

"We hit all our objectives. We got him, and bad I'd say, we completely shredded his defense, and our minor objectives are fine." Emma on the front seat talked softly with Chisolm, leaving Vasquez to his silent breakdown in the back.

"Children," he croaked and caught Emma's gaze in the mirror. "Not minor objectives."

Chisolm in the driver's seat perked up at the words, a spark of knowledge in his eyes that made reality crashed in with the ice-cold clarity of danger.

Like that, Vasquez' hands stilled as his lips pulled back from his teeth to...smile.

"Let us not start referring to our most vulnerable as objectives. Next thing we know, they are collateral damage, no?" Emma twitched as he leaned forward and smiled at her, rolling her eyes, not at his words but his antics. She, more than Chisolm, knew a front when she saw it with him. But she also was more willing to let it slide.

Chisolm hunted other people's weaknesses like a bloodhound, Emma was too nice for that, still.

And they both would blame his state on Faraday and what had happened with Riley.

He could blame everything on Riley now.

Vasquez cast both of them a feral grin through the mirror and pull his laptop bag up on the seat beside him. He had half an hour, enough time to go over the information Horne had relayed in Josh's stead - Josh, Vasquez' mind whispered and his grin softened around the edges as he remembered for the hundredth time today the feel of Faraday's hands and lips on him, of Faraday in him, around him, his husky voice in Vasquez' ear praising or begging, Faraday shivering apart with a lost groan, his eyes screwed shut as his back arched off the bed, fingernails leaving deep imprints in Vasquez' shoulders...

Vasquez lowered the window on his side and let the warm, dry breeze brush away the last remnants of horror and the sweet smoke as he lit a cigarillo.

"This is a federal car, Vasquez," Chisolm chided mildly from the front seat as Vasquez booted up the laptop and pushed the earplug of Horne's voice recorder in his ear. The smoke filtered through his lungs and brushed over his tongue with the soft bite of strong tobacco as he smirked around the filter.

"And no Federale has ever smoked in their car, Agent Chisolm, eh?"

Sam only rolled his eyes but Emma actually laughed a little.

In his ear, Horne recounted with a calm voice descriptions and strings of numbers, his inflection, the exact copy of how they had been said to him, unmistakably Josh no matter how different the voice.

Vasquez tipped the ashes of his 'rillo into a coffee cup left probably by Red, who had a seriously unhealthy relationship with Starbucks, and booted his CF-31. He preferred the 13'' on the job to his sleeker models, despite its considerable weight, it still was easier to handle than the bigger screened notebooks no matter the fact that it weighed three times as much.

There was something to say about a laptop one could break a skull with.

Next, he fished Bogue's phone from his jacket pocket, the glass splintered in one corner, the shiny metal casing no longer shiny but still in working order and turned on.

Emma twisted in her seat to watch him, curiosity and anticipation overshadowing the lingering rawness in her eyes.

"Do you think that will work?"

Vasquez snorted. "If not, we do it the old fashioned way. I can rig a security system if needed, but I'm sure he has smart home connection. If only because it's very impressive to show off in front of guests. And it is actually safer when you are away for extended periods of times. Normal burglars don't tend to be hackers in possession of your phone."

Before Vasquez plugged the phone into his laptop he raised it against the bright glare of a small flashlight, tracing the distinctive pattern of a finger connecting dots on the screen with a deeply disappointed sigh. "That this shit still works disappoints me more. Analog heathens, the whole lot of you. Denali should have taught him better!" Vasquez groused, shaking his head at Emma's raised eyebrow. "I'm offended on behalf of my profession."

That done, he pulled his own S7 from his pocket, murmuring "Praise the Samsung" as he started Bluetooth on both the phone and the laptop. No respectable businessman these days used their phone in the car with a cable, especially not when they wore a wireless headset.

Too easy.

"One tip, Emma, turn off the Bluetooth on your phone. There are bad people out there who wanna do bad things with it."

It wasn't that he loved Android programming so much, it was just as tedious and annoying as any programming, but the rewards...the rewards of a system that ran based on a hundred single little programs...

A smartphone could never produce the rush of a network, it was just that the gratification was instant. A bit like a quick jerk-off comapred to a night of passionate sex with a lover. The end result was the same, but they way there a lot more enjoyable. Yet, people jerked-off anyways, frequently.

"How come your skills with electronics are advertised so little in the community?" Sam asked from the front seat, calmly taking a tight curve with the assured experience of someone who once had evaded roadside bombs.  

Vasquez froze. It seemed so innocent a question, friendly conversation to compliment his skills, but beneath... There were reasons. There were reasons for everything. Layers and barbed wire, trenches, and walls. Chisolm thought he saw through them. Emma didn’t. She didn’t know there were things to see behind that’s why she never recognized them. And Faraday…

Vasquez thought back to the previous night and the instinctive understanding he had found in the man, his silent acquiescence to Vasquez’ non digitur policies. As if he understood. No need for explanations, he read Vasquez' scars and understood, like the pictures of hieroglyphs, seeing the story without speaking the language.

Vasquez never actually hid the fact that he knew his way around computers. To many that had quickly become a part of a point man's skill set and in the beginning, years back, when he had waded his way through his first shitty jobs, it had been a big boon to bolster his still rudimentary dreaming skills. These days, though...?

"Well," Vasquez smiled like a wolf, "it's not like I need them to land a job. Unless you want me to generate a Halo 4 level in a dream that is." He shrugged minimally, very aware of the painful tug of his left arm on his shoulder. "But most targets are not exactly the gamer type."

Vasquez turned back to his laptop, the cigarillo clamped between his teeth and went back to work, ignoring his partners in this particular crime in the age-old tried and true method of IT guys.

Dismissive attitude towards Bogue's sense for digital security aside, the man was not actually dumb and neither was his security guy Denali. The sooner Vasquez got into the phone and hopefully - oh please, holy Hedy Lamarr - into the hunting lodge's controls the sooner they'd all be out of the way and back with their injured dumbass. His injured dumbass.

In the end, he only had to compare Faraday's words, numbers, and pictures with the fingerprint traces on the phone surface. It left him with a number and the picture of an anchor. That he used the number first was plain luck.

"Are you sure the cameras are turned off?"

"Everything is turned off, Emma."

"How can you know that?" she asked, incredulous at the impossible rather than doubtful and Vasquez laughed.

"Because I have a trojan in his security server right now that I personally rode in piggyback on the ping of his remote security system."

He slipped his own phone and Bogue's into his right holster, leaving the second colt for the shoulder holster he wore for the special occasion and hefted the notebook onto his right hand.

For just a moment pictures of past and present overlapped, the car, the setup, Emma's eyeroll at her own lack of understanding, Sam's low laugh and his moment's hesitation to test Vasquez' words on the front door.

The both of them looked so much like federal agents with their hands on their hips like that, close to their guns but trying for casual, that it hurt, truly, for one blazing moment, hurt. Then it was gone and Vasquez marched past both of them, pulling a thin leather glove over his left hand with his teeth, grumbling under his breath.

"Madre Díos. Trust me a little, will you?"

 

***

 

He came to for the first time on the backseat of a moving car. An old coloss with an enormous beard was in the motion of shoving a needle into his left arm and wasn't that the kicker.

He had questions but he also was in a fuckton amount of pain so all the where, how and why got reduced to the essentials.

"Vasquez?"

The young voice in the front seat chuckle groaned in response. The bear - Horne, the bear beard - gave him what he needed.

"Gone with Emma and Sam for Bogue's house."

Oh. Oh yes. That was a thing they had a thief for.

Faraday thought of something to say that didn't make him look like a delirious hamster.

Something witty and clever, ideally even funny but he fell unconscious again.

 

The second time he awoke, the car and the movement had been replaced by cool linen and classical music, the musk of a standard fare FBI transporter exchanged for the sweet smoke of freshly lit cigarillos. The needle in his arm and the icy trickle of fluid in his vein remained.

Faraday was pretty sure that the darkness was due to the time of the day, not sudden blindness. That meant, he missed about half a day.

Somewhere outside, he heard voices, fragments of a conversation broken by the clacking of a notebook keyboard close by. Vasquez. Faraday reached for his arm and the needle, hoping that getting rid of whatever whoever had pumped into him would help clear the fog in his brain just enough to at least open his eyes.

He hadn’t even found the needle yet, when a big, warm hand closed over his.

“No, Guero, you need this.”

Motherhen, potentially and very likely Mexican.

Faraday carefully twisted his hand, instinctively not putting any pressure on his own upper arm and slotted their fingers together.

“Hey JJ.” Faraday grimaced. “I’ll live. I promise.”

Vasquez’ chuckle sounded more like a sob and that sound had Faraday finally fight through the grit and grime gluing his eyes shut to take a look at him.

“There you are.” Vasquez gave him a lopsided smile, looking like an underdressed and disheveled saint in the halo of the desk lamp behind him - untucked from his pants to better showcase the perfect silhouette beneath.

“Your room.” Faraday said the first intelligent thing that came to his mind.

“Sí, my room. Someone had to have an eye on you and you rest better in quiet than with the pizza party downstairs.”

Maybe it was the light, maybe it was the fact that Faraday was still half out of it, but somehow the shadows on Vasquez face seemed deeper, the lines more pronounced.

“But pizza party…,” Faraday whined and carefully squeezed the man’s hand.

And yes, Vasquez face looked positively pinched.  
“Get up, if you can manage, Guero, I won’t stop you.”

“But I won’t make it?”

“No.” Vasquez looked away with a sigh, back to the desk where his laptop stood. “Horne had to sedate you to get you to stop screaming. You have light internal bleeding on your liver, bruised ribs, and several contusions. He wanted to bring you to the hospital.”

Well, that explained the pinched look on Vasquez face. Maybe? Maybe knowing some things explained a lot about Vasquez.

“You brought me here instead?”

Vasquez eyes stayed glued to the desk and the chaos that covered it, all kinds of weird electronics, notebook, tablet, phone and two portable HDDs the only things, Faraday really recognized, except for the coffee cup, the fast food box and the ashtray of course. And a bottle of whiskey that leaned precariously against the wall.

“If I am a good boy and do what my nurse says, will that improve your mood?” The attempt at humor fell flat, likely because Faraday sounded like shit, but heck, a man only could do his best. “C’mon, V. We’ve all done fucked up shit in dreams before. Heck, God knows, I’ve had worse in real life.”

Vasquez pulled his hand back and stood, shaking his hand like a wolf trying to dislodge whoever had him by the scruff. “You knew what would happen. You knew the injuries would carry over and still, you went and made it worse.”

“Yes, I did. And I decided it was worth the risk because someone had to. And you know it. V. come on, what really has your panties in such a twist?”

“You already were injured. Joshua…”

“Don’t! Call me that.” Faraday cut him off before Vasquez could make an unforgivable mistake. “Please.”

And Vasquez, because he was a good guy, relented immediately. “Lo siento, I thought…”

He turned and reached for the cigarillo smoldering in the ashtray, his left, moving slow and jittery, avoided the coffee and went straight for the whiskey.

Faraday thumped his head into the soft pillow that smelled so much like Vasquez, warmth, a little musky, smoke and coffee with a touch of cinnamon. “I hate that name, is all.”

He got a low hum in response as Vasquez stepped to the open window and shoved the cigarillo between his lips.

“Josh is ok. Nobody ever called me that. I… Sorry for the baggage.”

That got him an annoyed chuckle. “I watched it.” Vasquez cast a look over his shoulder to the man on the bed, washing down a drag of smoke with a mouthful of whiskey. “Six shots. One grazed the liver, three hit your lung, one each on the right arm and right leg. Hyper-realism is nightmare stuff.”

“Figure, you got a few of those already,” Faraday said in lieu of an apology.

“Sí, a few. Sometimes.” Vasquez pushed away from the window and stubbed the half-smoked ‘rillo in the ashtray before he stepped back towards the bed and offered the bottle with a rueful smile.

“A small mouthful. Don’t tell Horne.”

And that was it, that was the apology. As far as those went, it wasn’t even a bad one, Faraday decided and took a tiny swig, barely enough to wet his lips, little enough to assuage Vasquez’ worry. As apologies went, his was not exactly a grand gesture but he could make it up to the man once he got out of bed.

“But we won, V.”

If they hadn’t, if something had gone wrong, Faraday wouldn’t have woken in this bed or this town, he would've been somewhere in a safe house, far away from the scene of crime. Another reason why he had done what he had and taken the risk. No matter what that shit did to his body, Vasquez would’ve gotten him out and huh… now, thinking back on it, looked like not only Vasquez subconscious had made some weird leaps in the last two days.

“We did. Bogue’s in the hospital, but… we got good data. Emma will be happy. Just…” Vasquez sat and awkwardly maneuvered the bottle into his right hand. “Next time… warn me.”

“So you can be somewhere else?”

Vasquez shrugged. “Or come with you.”

And yeah, Faraday wasn’t going to ask. Yet. He’d just file the information and store it on a map of the minefield of Vasquez mind, somewhere very close to the name Alejandra. And they were not going to talk about _that_.

“You think there will be a next time?”

A next dream, a next job, a next day even. The next sex in any case. Faraday refused to part from the man without having him at least once more.

“Well, I have nowhere else to go. Goodnight offered to work together. Legal stuff. He needs someone to take his place for a while. I need to have surgery for this,” Vasquez tapped the scar under his collarbone. “Repair damage to my lung. He says, he knows a doctor with no questions to ask, just…”

He talked fast, pushed the words out before he could think better of it with his eyes fixed just somewhere to the right of Faraday’s face.

“You need someone to have your back,” Faraday finished, as Vasquez drew his lower lip between his teeth and pressed the air from his lungs with a huff as if to remind himself that they were properly working.

“You can do without. I’m not sure there is anything this world can throw at you that you cannot survive if necessary but you’re still in a fucking precarious position with half of it after you.”

Vasquez’ face softened and his gaze dropped to his hands in his lap. A few heartbeats, then his expression changed and a slow smile spread across.

“I bring qualifications, you know?” he said, mahogany eyes twinkling. “I’m the world’s greatest lover, after all.”

“You…” Faraday narrowed his eyes, then he laughed. And then he flinched as a sharp stab of pain flashed out from his liver. Yeah, there was that.

“I put McCann in a box for you, Guero.”

“Words, words. Prove it!”

“Later. Not when you have more bruises than normal skin.”

Faraday rolled his eyes. “Fine, be that way. But at least work on the bed if you insist on working. There’s enough room for both of us and your pile of scrap. Show an invalid some consideration. And pizza.”

“When the infusion is through, I will get you pizza, Guero.”

Vasquez brushed his fingers through Faraday’s hair and smiled. Then he pushed away and went to gather whatever all he had spread on the desk, even going so far as to keying Faraday into his tablet to check the news about the accident.

He didn’t bother to put his shirt back on before he stretched out next to Faraday, his ankle thrown totally inconspicuously over his lover’s.

“Where does Goody even live?” Faraday asked after he had managed to read his way through an all not interesting or informative CNN report.

“Louisiana, why?”

“That damn Comanche still has my Mustang…”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Rapidamente, hijo de puta! Por fa! MÁS RAPID!" - Ride, you son of a bitch! Please! Ride Faster!  
> Rafito - diminutive of Rafael, more intimate than Rafa  
> Hermano - brother.


	11. Epilogue I - If it's not a happy ending...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My biggest thanks to Hazel Athena who listened to me screaming about this chapter endlessly for days.
> 
> Additional chapter warnings:
> 
> Torture  
> Minor character death  
> Drug use
> 
> This chapter is a little longer than I had planned. About 5k words.  
> I blame Vasquez.  
> Which is why I divided it in two parts to make it easier to read.
> 
>  
> 
> PS: Hazel said to include a major angst warning.
> 
> WARNING! ANGST!
> 
> PPS: shoutout to my mom that helped me tremendously by supplying some much needed clever banter when I didn't know how to go on

_Two months later - Washington, an office_

 

“You really want to do this? Get back in the game. Get yourself a team?”

Sam took a sip of the admittedly high quality coffee in front of him and answered with a chipper smile. “Well, with the success we’ve had the last time, it should be worth a try, I reckon. And a joint team that can operate freely with both our resources but without direct control from either FBI and CIA or, God forbid, the NSA, has a lot more room to do actual work.”

On the tv screen in front of them a generic tv host recounted for the umpteenth time the story of Bart Bogue’s nervous breakdown and the numerous investigations sparked by recently surfaced information into business dealings he had with several high ranking politicians.

“We can switch half the current administration after this.”

Arthur leaned deeper into his armchair, raising his own cup to cover the lower half of his face.

“Not exactly a bad thing, if you ask me,” Sam murmured and caught the tail end of his co-conspirator’s smile.

“Not exactly, no. Your boys willing? I heard that Goodnight is out for the count.”

“Goodnight and Billy are in as advisors for the moment. Goody needs time to work through things but as I keep telling him… the dreams are not his problem.” He paused to think a moment before he admitted. “He’ll come back on his own schedule. Horne actually agreed to freelance work on a case to case base. Red Harvest is in, as part of the FBI contingent.”

Sam’s lips twitched. “And I am very sure that Faraday and Vasquez will be in, as soon as we can get Vasquez out of the country again without turning it into a straight to jail card.”

“Judging from Agent Cullen’s track record… that shouldn’t be too hard, actually.”

They glanced at the tv in unison at Arthur’s words.

Emma chose that moment to come breezing through the door, all business and sharp edges in her Armani suit, every hair twisted into a tight bun on the back of her head.

Sam had seen her do shots with Vasquez, all languid and very drunk, he had seen her in one of Faraday’s fantasy games, flying a starfighter with screaming delight. He had seen her trade female secrets with his ex-wife in one of the scarier displays in his life. Like this, she looked like a stranger.

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that, Sir.” Without sitting, she plucked the beamer dongle from the media setup and connected it to the laptop under her arm. “There has been a …” Her gaze swept to Sam. “... complication.”

“A complication?” Arthur, of course, appeared unfazed as ever. To him these men were good assets. To Sam and Emma, they had become friends.

As the tv switched to the background of the Interpol database, Sam sat straighter.

“What am I looking at,” he asked and Emma called up a file.

“Rafael Alvarez, 34,” she recited and Sam rubbed a hand over his face.

“Please tell me….”

Emma told him nothing, she just tapped a key and a picture appeared.

“Well, it seems, _this_ does indeed complicate the proceedings…” Arthur crossed his legs at the ankles and rubbed his temples. “Are you really sure about this, Sam?”

Emma answered. “I guess we’ll have to find out.”

 

***

 

No matter how many times Emma stood in front of Goodnight’s house, the colonial style “bachelor’s pad” never failed to impress. It stood in the sweltering September heat with the untouchable elegance of a lady, white facade seemingly untouched by time. Bridal white in the lush green surrounding it. High trees sheltering her and her inhabitants from a world that sometimes demanded too much of them.

When asked, he told a tale about how his family had banned him and his partner here to avoid the scandal that would inevitably befall them in the high society of Louisiana, but in all honesty… the Robicheaux family had weathered enough scandals that a gay son added nothing but a bit of dramatic flair.

Goodnight just liked to suffer in the privacy of their former vacation home.

“Mon chère!”  He greeted her with the usual grandeur and flourish, and she smiled into the quick embrace of the Cajun and through his very obvious lie. “You look as stunning as ever.”

They both knew that wasn’t true. Emma had barely slept in the last week and not at all the night before, propped up only by a lot of caffeine and adrenaline, but she’d take what she could get. Goodnight in turn, looked better each time she saw him, younger, easier in his own skin. Not well, per se, just...better. More real.

“And you are just as charming.”

“Ah...I daresay my surroundings have a not insignificant influence there.” He gestured around him, the park like grounds, the lavish Southern green and the stately house.

“Have you been fed up this quickly with destroying Bartholomew Bogue’s life? Now I am almost worried for mine,” Goodnight admitted with a sly smile that took all the heat out of his words and left only honesty beneath. Impossible not to respond to.

Emma shrugged

“Even though we can’t officially use the information we got and even though it’s by far not all of it… “ She had watched Bart Bogue have a nervous breakdown on the matter of a few banal tax evasions that he should easily have shifted off to some employée. She had watched him reduced to a shivering mess, even implicating himself when prosecution had brought up a building project with some shifty background holes. Emma knew what these were, how the records of an illegal waste dump had been falsified and everybody living on this patch of land was in grave danger, but Bart Bogue was a master at not making charges stick.

“It’s like he forgot to defend himself against accusations leveled at him. Like a house with a destroyed base he just crumbles.”

“So, you have retreated from your quest for …” Goodnight didn’t fill the last word, leaving it up to her to admit to vengeance.

He would have to be disappointed. Emma threw back her head and laughed.

“Pffff! You think? Interpol is very interested in some business ventures of him.” Her words ran out when she thought of the other reason she had visited Interpol. “But not to the detriment of other important things.”

Goodnight paused in his steps, a gentlemanly hand resting against her elbow and took the moment to look at her, worry shadowing his face. For her, Emma noted with surprise and forced herself to smile.

“It’s fine,” she answered the unspoken question. “It will be fine.”

She let him lead her towards the living room, making pleasant conversation about the beauty of Lyon as they went.

Right up until moment that Goodnight opened the door and the commotion in the room drowned out everything else. Faraday’s screams drowned out even voice of the howling sports commentator as his team hit a homerun. Billy next to him scowled and said something low and pithy that had the yelling turn into laughter. Only Vasquez on Faraday’s other side sat peacefully with his legs curled under him, his right idly twirling one of his chromed colts, his left resting in his lap in forced relaxation.

Compared to his usual, he was more than a little dressed down in a pair of hole riddled jeans and his shirt falling easily around his body, untucked and airy, wide open at the collar and the arms rolled up  in deference to the still sweltering Louisiana autumn heat. Emma might have bet a month’s wage that he wore no socks either, although a pair of trainers stood on the floor in front of him. Vasquez would never be so careless as to be caught without shoes in any situation. Or his gunbelt that she caught a glimpse of around his hips, phone tucked into the left holster as he so often did.

His smile as he listened to his obnoxiously loud friend lingered somewhere between fond and charmingly annoyed. Vasquez, if Emma had to find any description, looked relaxed in safety. He seemed to get calmer in familiar company, whereas Faraday, obviously, only got louder.

If Emma were a betting person, she would have put a lot of money on Goodnight kicking both men out of his house after a week tops. Faraday could be not obnoxiously loud when he worked, diligent and hyper focused on his subjects. When he didn’t he often had the social grace of a galloping elephant. Goodnight, on the other hand, had more triggers than a can of nitroglycerin, although he and the Forger shared a certain showmanship, a perfect front for their darker partners to step behind.

When the first week had turned into a second and still no note that Goodnight had kicked out the men he had given asylum and a work offer in Vasquez case, even Sam had become curious.

He had caught Billy on a phone call from Lyon and Goodnight’s partner had allegedly deadpanned ‘lots of space’ when asked.

Vasquez had laughed when she asked him. “Josh is not that bad. He needs things to catch his attention. Video game. Working on his car. Learning new things.”

Asked what Joshua Faraday could possibly learn on a remote house in Louisiana, the answer had been as plain as obvious. “Spanish.”

Another key factor had probably been Vasquez and his recuperation.

Goodnight had relayed the news of the successful surgery and in return accepted her request to keep Vasquez in place without question. Easy, with a man who had first had to spend a week in hospital and then on semi bed rest for another before he could even think of working his way towards training again.

Said man looked up now, the softness reserved for his partner melting away into a beaming smile when he recognized the guest.

Whatever game was on tv instantly forgotten as he untangled his long legs and holstered the colt to stride over and fold her into a tight embrace, one of those she had come to connect to him, along with cinnamon laced coffee deep in the night and randomly appearing cat pictures on her phone whenever she was sad and missed Matthew, long phone calls where she could ramble about all the things that hadn’t gone away with Bogue and all the things that had.

“You look tired, Miss Emma.” See, at least Vasquez was honest. “He who must not be named running you ragged?”

Emma laughed but at least to her ears it sounded false. “If you are talking about my boss… he is innocent for once.”

That garnered her an indignant scoff from Goodnight and an acid dripping ‘innocent’ as he passed her.

Vasquez stepped away with an amused shake of his head, just in time to save his beer off the side table from a wildly gesturing Faraday.

“Now you’re here.” He grinned. “I’m tempted to cut off your phone just to get you a little rest.”

“If you do that, Vasquez….”

Billy found the perfect moment to mute the halftime show just when Emma raised her voice catching everyone’s attention.

Faraday’s, first and foremost, whose initial smile faded quickly as his eyes bore into her, the sharp mind under the bluster latching onto her weakness, perhaps the strain in her voice, immediately.

“Hello Emma.” He set his own bottle on the steel and glass monstrosity of a table on front of him, eyeing Billy out of the corner of his eyes. “What is it?”

He never took his eyes off her when he reached up and gently tugged Vasquez back to his side as if saying _This one’s mine and you can’t have it._

The man at his side rolled his eyes at her with a grin bordering on happiness, so different from the wild, wolfish creature she had met in Portland, although he still contained that wild energy under his skin, something unpredictable and dangerous that was plain part of his nature. Decisiveness that just as well might translate into the moment when he pulled the trigger. Vasquez would always have the makings of a killer.

A murderer though?

Emma sat primly in the remaining free armchair, and unfolded the letter she carried in her pocket.

 _“I promised him that, Emma,”_ Sam had said and stared at the screen in Arthur’s office. _“Not in so many words but I promised him that he’d be protected. Whatever else happens, I will not go back on that.”_

She unfolded the letter and started to read.

 

***

 

Vasquez had known that something was up the moment Emma stepped into the room, all too prim and businesslike. They had called it arrest face. Not a good thought. But she had melted into his embrace all the same, tucked her head under his chin for a quick moment of respite and he had thought, that maybe, she wasn’t there for him.

Whatever Vasquez had expected, Emma unfolding a letter with the official logo of Interpol, it starting with the words “With great respect” only to immediately cite “tireless dedication, to the detriment of his own health and safety” had not been it.

She watched him over the rim of the paper, like a shark circling prey. He had no idea how many times she had read it already, but often enough to basically know it by heart.

“As such,” she cited, barely subdued excitement coloring her voice,” he is a credit to the United States of America and we recognize gladly the help your agent has provided in the arrest of the international criminal….” At this point everyone in the room held their breath, though Vasquez, arguably, had done so since Emma had started. One, big, gulp of air, expelled now, when she really, truly said it. “Riley Bennet.”

Her eyes crinkled with a smile as they caught his over the edge of the letter. “We want to express our gratitude to your organization and your agent and citizen and will, of course, put the accusations against his person ad acta effective immediately. Sincerely…”

Whoever had signed that letter didn’t matter. He didn’t hear it anymore.

Faraday’s fingers dug painfully into muscles and skin where he held onto Vasquez as if his own life depended on it or as if Vasquez might vanish, just get lighter and lighter until he floated away when the pressure of months fell away.

“Madre dios,” he managed to say before Josh grabbed him and dragged him into one of his bear hugs, only barely mindful of the still healing scar.

“Emma, I love you. I would propose marriage to you right now, if you… you know…,” he yelled over Vasquez’ head and then shut himself up by grabbing Vasquez’ chin and sealing their lips in a kiss.

“Most of it is Sam’s influence.” Emma corrected, undeterred by the pda in front of her. “Don’t be surprised when you get a plaque that says property of the FBI soon.”

Vasquez raised a sloppy hand to show he had heard her but already licked into the heady taste of Faraday, beer and smoke and crazy smiles, allowing himself this moment of joy and pure, unadulterated relief.

The US, as much as he liked the country, had slowly turned into a prison, drawing closer and closer and much too close for comfort at some points but now, the doors to the world had been thrown wide open again and with it…

“Wait a moment…” He untangled himself from Faraday, gently pushing where the Forger didn’t want to let him go. “I am no American citizen.”

She looked up to the ceiling, all feigned innocence that Alejandra had done better at five years old, and handed him the rest of the papers.

Right on top lay a passport and it said Cayetano Jesus Vasquez.

Something clenched painfully in Vasquez’ chest at the thought, at all the good and all the bad ideas that had gone into this gesture. At all the hypocrisy, too. His thumb rubbed along the hard edges of the document. Born in Albuquerque, it said, with a birthdate close enough to his own that he could have accepted it. He had many fake passports and driver’s licenses, a habit he had developed years ago, but this one was real. An untarnished identity.

“You should have asked me, Emma,” he said, appointing a name to the knot in his chest. Sadness. Not the great sadness of tears but maybe a small one that came with the same old, same old. “Not every Mexican wants to become American, you know?”

“This one should.” Her voice lost all humor. ”Vasquez…”

Emma’s gaze flickered to Goodnight and Billy and to the floor. Faraday at his side hissed softly far too close to Vasquez’ ear.

“You left a lot of blood when you were shot.” She paused, gathered her thoughts and gave him enough time for the dread to settle in his gut. “It has become a bit of a habit lately to type high profile criminals to see if they show up anywhere else… “

He dropped the passport with a soft. “No...Emma…”

The past laughed in his face and all his attempts to beat it with the inevitability of a freight train. Fate did not care for a mortal’s feeble attempts to stop it.

“Emma…”

“Someone scraped the same DNA off the presumed scene of the torture and murder of a federal police officer in Mexico five years ago. A bit of a curious case, that one, not high profile enough to be a case for Interpol, yet someone went to the lengths to make it one. I’m sorry, Vasquez.”

Vasquez made a pained sound and next to him Faraday moved. Only a quick thinking hand stopped his boyfriend from actually going for his backup weapon.

“No…,” he murmured, barely cutting through Emma’s scalpel sharp words.

“So tell me, Agent Alvarez…”

“No!”  Vasquez shouted over her, the twinge in his left chest a stark reminder that he was in no shape yet to take it up with three trained operatives, Faraday at his side or not. In the ensuing silence his words and the soft snick of the safety on Faraday’s 22mm echoed loud.

“No.” He bent his fingers around Faraday’s and clicked the safety back on. “I didn’t.”

He could still decide how to face the end.

Head on.

“Alright,” Emma responded mildly. “Tell me what happened.”

“Just like that?” Faraday scoffed bitterly. “You come here and accuse him of torture and murder and when he loses it that’s it? Off the table. Haha. Just a little joke? What the fuck are you even thinking, Cullen?”

“I am thinking that a lot of things don’t add up here. But fact is, someone murdered Carlos Vasquez and your boyfriend is the only known suspect.”

That was the gist of it. The way the whole room gasped at the name and at the sheer audacity of a man who dared live with his alleged victim’s identity. Even Goodnight, even Billy, seemed to judge him, though, in hindsight, Vasquez was pretty sure they’d known something was up, gathering them like this in the living room.

Once more, his famed paranoia had failed him.

He should’ve known better by now.

Except with these people and the way Emma looked at him right now as if she hoped that he could just spin a convincing tale and allow her to ignore whatever they had on him...

“It wouldn’t be the first time a police officer ran into trouble,” she offered and all Vasquez could do to cut her off was a feeble shake of his head.

“I was never… “

There was no good starting point to this tale, not one point that Vasquez could pinpoint to say: this is where we failed. But there was one thing that needed saying. Not even for him, alive and breathing and able to convince them through his actions. Every murder had two sides and inevitably everybody always looked to the one they pinned as the murderer, forgetting easily about the one left behind.

“Carlos was not just my partner,” Vasquez offered the room, his voice dangerously soft, giving away too much. “Carlos was my best friend. We grew up together. I’d let them cut off my hand before I raised it against him.”

Billy chuckled. “Good thing that said no murderer, ever, Vasquez.” He moved a little closer to both of them, ratcheting up the tension in Faraday another notch.

“Easy, Faraday, nobody wants to harm your boy, alright?”

Vasquez took in the preternatural calm in Billy’s eyes and then, the minuscule curl to his lip. One thing Billy was not was a liar.

“I know how that sounds,” he admitted, “but Carlos to me was my brother. If we ran into trouble we turned to each other first, family later. Always.”

“Like that time they caught you taking a bribe?” Emma said with her voice dripping sarcasm.

“That wasn’t…” Vasquez snapped. “I let a 15-year-old with 2 grams of Marijuana in his pocket go. His mom sent me a thank you.” He rolled his eyes. “You do not get payed enough to be shot at with the Federales, Emma. We both know that.”

“You took bribes…” She seemed honestly offended at that, moreso even than at the thought that he had tortured and murdered another police officer.

“I am not in the business of arresting children and letting the dealers go.” He scoffed. “Also, I am good at what I do, but I am no saint, Emma. Lo siento.”

He looked at his hands and at the rug below.

“That was Carlos’ job.”

Vasquez pinched his eyes and shook his head. “An idealist, a hero. I would have done everything for him. He felt like my conscience sometimes. So when he came to me and said that men of our unit worked for the cartel…”

He found Emma’s eyes over his hand, the uncanny suspicion warring in her eyes with the deep sympathy with which she wanted to believe him.

He remembered her grief only too clearly, kneeling over the grave that bore her husband’s name in Rose Creek. Vasquez had stumbled over her there for the very same, predictable reasons, his grief older and the longing for something that resembled home more subdued, but he hadn’t been able to resist giving her what meager comfort he could and she had taken his embrace with all the compassion with which it had been offered.

In some way, she reminded him of Carlos, the same idealism, the same inability to look past injustice and if it killed them. Other times, when she let go of the job for once and was just someone in need of a friend and lots of alcohol, she was his little sister all over again. But work… that was all Carlos.

She thought of that bribery charge first and foremost, where Vasquez’ thoughts inevitably went to the day a doctor had placed a tiny pink bundle in his arms and said congratulations. Even without the awkward situation with Alejandra’s mother, he had had only one person to go to in that moment.

He had sat outside, a stuffed toy in his hands and taken her from Vasquez immediately.

_‘How are you feeling, papa?’_

_‘I don’t know? What is the next level above completely terrified?’_

Carlos had laughed. Alejandra had started to cry.

“Carlos was good as investigator, great instincts, but with computers...not so much.” Maybe that was a bit too harsh. “He could install a game and play.” Vasquez snorted a laugh as Faraday at his side made a disbelieving noise. Carlos had been hopeless, there was no softening the blow. “I hacked duty rotations for him, emails, Facebook pages. Put back-ups in the cloud and the dark web. To be sure, you know? Just in case something went wrong.”

“Because you’re a paranoid son of a bitch,” Faraday murmured lovingly next to him, a painful smile on his face, his palm heavy and welcome between Vasquez shoulderblades.

“Don’t you ever say that about my mother again, cábron,” Vasquez quipped, stealing himself a smile for the strength to go on. Even Emma smirked as he looked back at her.

“It was a lot. Incidental evidence like days off that aligned with crimes, but also incriminating emails. Money movements… and it wasn’t just them. People believe that emails they delete are deleted and they use company server like their private post box. Maldita, half these people don’t even know what a firewall is, let alone what it does…”

Tracking back some of those emails had been a pain, hours of work and sleepless nights at home. Missed afternoons with Alejandra that he in hindsight regretted almost the most, right after the fact that he had done it in the first place. Of course, Carlos would have done it on his own then… but if Vasquez had just been a little less diligent, hadn’t quite given in to his bloodhound nature as much. Or if he had just dug a little deeper…

_The loose cover of the last step of the veranda wobbled under Rafael's boot like it had done the last two months. He promised to fix it that weekend. Just like every day of the past 7 weeks._

_Before Aleja tripped over it in one of her mad sprints out the back door._

_Except this time he meant it. No work, no extra-curricular work, nothing._

_He would get on a horse and go on a ride with his daughter, too, while he was on the task of catching up with neglected duties._

_"Hey," Carlos greeted him far too chipper, as Rafael tore open the passenger door and dropped into the seat, two cups of coffee balanced precariously on his arm._

_One he dumped into the cup holder on the driver’s side, the other he held onto like a lifeline, or like an invisible wall to shield him from his best friend's laughter._

_"So, how is my little princess this morning?"_

_Rafael dunked his head against the headrest and yawned, stewing a full half minute on the question while Carlos pulled away from his parents’ ranch and onto the road to Chihuahua._

_"The spoiled little beast... woke me up at four, citing a nightmare, the plot of which she half copied from Avengers, to get into my bed for cuddles. Giving in just for the sake of one more hour of sleep, I then was graced with a wild story that I fucking know she got from you because I was there when it happened."_

_"No wonder you have no sex life." Carlos had the audacity to grin. "Even if you could manage a private night, you'd just fall asleep."_

_"Granted I find a woman in 100 kilometers radius that hasn't been in your bed recently," Rafael shot back._

_"Or a man not deeper in the closet than the pope."_

_"Yeah."_

_At least the coffee was strong and sweet. Who needed a sex life when he had a lively 6 year old at home and a fulfilling work life that consisted of digging through his co-workers' dirty laundry about their contacts to a spinoff of the Juarez Cartel._

_"Last day...," he mumbled into his cup, half open eyes fixed onto his friend's profile. He always looked so serene, happy, like he never had a minute of doubt in his life._

_"We got this, Rafa. We give our reports to Internal and it's off our backs. You can get rid of the data and nobody will ever look your way again.  The Captain’s gonna keep this one tight and if it comes to the worst, I promise I’ll keep your name out of it."_

_It was just how he worked, Rafael mused. Carlos was an eternal optimist. Someone who believed in the things he did and dragged others along by the sheer force of his character._

_Someone in desperate need of Rafael to temper him with a little realism._

_"Not gonna delete the dataspace. That shit's gonna sit there until I die or Dropbox folds shop. You never know when you need it."_

_"Wait, wasn't it you who said to never use Dropbox?" Carlos voice held an edge of righteous betrayal that made Rafael laugh. And the bastard knew it. They had this exact talk at least once a week, whenever Rafael hit a snag, either with Aleja or work or his parents who tried to get him to date a nice girl. ('Or a nice boy, his mama had whispered three days ago, God alone knew where she had that info from, 'we don't mind. We don't want you to be alone.')_

_"Or Yahoo or Facebook. Yes," Rafael gave the same answer he always did. "It was a metaphor. You know, since you are the guy I had to explain to why he should never install his games on the OS partition."_

_"Good thing, you're not judgment..."_

_The road south was deserted at shortly past five in the morning, the only travelers those who had to head farther than the nearest town._

_"Rafa..."_

_"I see it."_

_In no way should it be blocked by two vans in the distance standing back to back in the non-descript white of working vans in every part of the world. The kind that everybody saw and nobody noticed._

_A thousand thoughts raced through his head in the span of a second. 'We're fucked.' 'They're not getting us alive.' 'You got two guns between you and desperation on your side.' 'If they catch you....' 'Alejandra.'_

_"We're fucked," he said and pulled the smartphone from the side pocket of his uniform pants. Just a moment's thought wasted on sending a last love note to his family and discarded just as soon. If they came looking, hell, if the cartel thought they knew something... or could use them against the two of them._

_"Ram them. If we're lucky they'll shoot us. Or we actually get them with enough speed to get through._

_Carlos grunted at his words and stuffed his weapon in the middle compartment while Rafael drew his own and with his right hand fumbled the datacard out of his smartphone, crushing it between his fingers before he started the factory reset and shoved it under his seat._

_"Alright. Let's see how they'll get their fucking data after they killed their IT guy."_

_He snickered. It hurt his throat to force the sound past the thundering heartbeat in his throat._

_Up ahead, six men jumped out of the vans, rifles in their hand or guns drawn. He knew every one of them._

_"You think anybody's gonna miss us at work?" Carlos asked, mouth curled into a bitter grin._

_"That's half of today's roster. What do you think?"_

_"I'm scared."_

_Of all the things Rafael had expected, this was probably the only one that scares him. Carlos laughed at every challenge. He had volunteered for diaper duty when Rafael broke down crying from the overwhelming responsibility of caring for a newborn, his parents' help or not. Rafael had watched him wade through a drug raid with a bullet in his arm, happy for the fact that he’d get extra time off._

_As he looked over now he found that for once, Carlos actually looked scared. "Yeah, me too."_

_There had to be something more to say than that, something profound that counted as proper last words as his friend floored the accelerator._

_Carlos had insisted on buying a safer car after his god daughter had been born. Otherwise they would have been dead. As it stood, the jeep pushed through the vans only to be stopped by the exploding airbags and a somersault off the side of the road._

_Being dead would've been better._

_“C’mon, Rafa,” a voice said above him, boot raised for another hit. Carlos’ body lay curled up a little down the road, uniform torn on his arm where something had cut through the cloth and drawn blood. But he had not been dead.  Rafael had heard him scream. “You’re not stupid. Did you really think you can pull something like that and not pay a price?”_

 

“There is this thought:” Vasquez murmured to his hands, fingers picking at his nail and the gun callouses that started to come off after he hadn’t used his left in weeks. “‘After this is over’.

“In the beginning it means: ‘After I get rescued’, then ‘After I survive this’ and then all you can think about is ‘When it stops hurting.’ You want nothing more than to give in.

Maybe they could break one of us alone, but we heard the other. We knew it was us. Together. And we had a family to protect. I had… “

Habit had him shut up but Emma already picked up the slack.

“... a daughter to think of.”

To his right, Faraday made a wounded sound. Vasquez squeezed his leg in quick respons. He had no strength to explain or apologize. Later. He’d have to do all that later. When this was over.

“Alejandra.”

“Carlos had no children, no wife. Only 50 women on every hand. His one weakness. No need for a love of life,” Vasquez’ laugh lodged in his throat. “He already had lost his heart to a girl the first time she had puked on him. He took being godfather far too serious.”

“Or you made the wisest decision in choosing him, Vasquez.” Looking right, Vaquez found Goodnight sitting in an almost exact mirror position to Emma, a little aloof as he tended to be, sympathetic from a safe distance. It was that distance that made him good at what he did, the way he watched the world more like an interested explorer than a true participant. Goodnight had an impeccable eye to judge situations and if anybody would treat Vasquez neutrally in this, sympathy be damned, it were him. Like the thought of a clean shot the knowledge felt oddly calming to Vasquez fraying nerves, enough to coax out the shadow of a smile.

“I did.”

 

 

_“You demolished our van, Rafa. That’s malicious injury of property, my friend. I am not happy.”_

_Once upon a time, three days ago, they had joked that the only reason Garcia had become a medic was the fact that he was a sadistic son of a bitch who liked to dish out pain. Today, in his new reality, Rafael knew it was true._

_“Lucky for us, we could salvage the battery. The other was running low. It’s always such a hassle to be stranded in the desert with no way out, don’t you agree?”_

_Panicked, Rafael’s hands spasmed against the cuffs holding them above his head,  the metal cutting deeply into the already chafed skin._

_A warm breeze brushed in through the destroyed window of the deserted workshop that had become his reality, just a soft touch to cool his feverish skin and dry the blood that ran down his back in tacky rivulets, make it more tacky. He forced himself to breathe through the pain of broken ribs and open his eyes to stare the man in front of him._

_Somewhere, very far away, Carlos screamed._

_“Can’t change the truth, García.”_

_“Anonymous is protecting your data? Really? That is what you wanna go with, Alvarez? ”_

No, _a part of Rafael’s brain whispered._ Just make it stop.

Alejandra _, said the other, the one that had come up with hacker friends that covered his ass and would release the info on the internet should anything happen to his or Carlos’ families._

Stick with your truth _, whispered a third voice and that sounded like the psychology instructor in the Intelligence division._

_“How much do you have to lose, García?”_

_“How much do you?”_

_Smiling was that hardest thing even if it was the easiest fallback. “I’ll be dead. I won’t care.”_

_“Ah, Rafael… such a stubborn bastard. Inteligencia trained you well.” García gently patted his cheek. “Enjoy today.” He grinned. “We have a little surprise for you.”_

 

 

Around him, silence settled, broken up only by Josh’s labored breaths and Emma’s soft sighs, heavy with all the things they imagined had been done to him. That they didn’t asked was something Vasquez would forever be grateful for.

The screams echoing in his head had fallen silent somewhere along the years since then, held at bay by his own staunch refusal to acknowledge the memories as soon as they had faded from the raw pain of fresh heart wounds to the distant ache of things that happened once.

He swallowed through the tightness in his shoulders, allowing himself to lean back into Josh’s hand on his back.

“Do you need a break?”

Emma’s concern came with a bottle of water from Goodnight and Vasquez allowed himself the moment to drink before he shook his head.

“You recording, agent?” He asked as he recapped it and placed it on the floor for easier access. He would need this. And a bottle of cheap Vodka on top. His fingers shook as he pulled them back.

“Yes.” Emma hesitated a second before she pulled a small recorder out of her jacket and placed it on the table, hidden microphone on the inside of her lapel and all.

“Is Sam listening in?”

This time she shook her head and looked away. She flinched when her gaze strafed over Faraday.

“He’ll get the recording,” she added and sounded even more guilty.

“Good,” Faraday all but growled from Vasquez rightt. “Because Vasquez will not be doing that again.”

“Faraday, we have to…”

“Bullshit! You know he didn’t do it. Fucking look at him, Emma. He’s a wreck! Hasn’t he been betrayed enough?”

Emma hiss-spitted as soon as the words left Faraday’s mouth and something in Vasquez unclenched that he hadn’t realized existed, expecting exactly what Faraday had just insinuated.

“We will not betray him! Are you insane? He is one of us!” Her eyes flew to Goodnight and Billy, especially Billy and then to Vasquez, softening ever so slightly, before they finally moved back to Faraday.

“Then why are you doing this to him, Agent Cullen?” Faraday’s voice vibrated with a helpless kind of desperation and Vasquez would’ve loved to tell him that he would be fine. That this wasn’t as bad as it probably looked from Faraday’s side.

That it wasn’t Emma’s fault that the cat was out of the bag and they had to face the music; that it had been too late the moment Riley had shot him and left him to die. He shuddered at the idea alone, that someone else might have made the connection. She understood better than his Forger that secrets, once revealed, couldn’t just be shoved back into the dark in the hope that the dust would settle. Secrets had a mind of their own and shit always floated.

“Because it doesn’t matter what I think or what Sam thinks, Faraday! We need to have at least his version of events, before Sam can do something about it. I lost my husband to a traitor within my own organization. Imagine what could happen with two organizations as close as FBI and Federales.” Her face fell. “You didn’t really think I or Sam would hand him over, did you?”

Faraday’s voice was pure acid. “You would have, if he had been guilty, wouldn’t you?”

Emma’s eyes widened as her gaze landed on Vasquez, mute with incredulity.

“Well, I hope, she would or I would be very disappointed, Guero,” Vasquez drawled and straightened slowly, pushing tighter against Faraday’s hand, the pure reassurance that he wouldn’t go anywhere.

“Emma…,” he gently caught her attention again. “Let’s get this over with.”

She nodded and checked her recorder. Faraday cursed and half climbed half scooted behind Vasquez, pulling his boyfriend against his chest. Vasquez shuddered into the embrace, against the solid wall at his back.

“Ok?” Faraday murmured gently against Vasquez ear.

“Sí.” Better, at least.

 

 

_Slippery hands scratched over the raw skin of his wrist and he yelled as they bumped into the broken fingers of his right hand. Rafael wasted no time to find out who it was, he tucked into himself and curled over the plastic-smooth floor, bringing a safe body length between them._

_Something tore painfully on his face in the movement, a piece of cloth, stuck to the cut over his brow. Black, tightly woven cloth. A hood. And underneath, the stench of panicked sweat and old blood. Fresh blood now, too._

_Feet scrabbled outside the darkness, coming closer, slithering over the smooth floor. Hand reached for him. More hands, more pain. He couldn’t…_

_“Easy, hermano. I got you,” a voice said, rough and wounded but unmistakably Carlos._

_Rafael sagged down listlessly and groaned._

_“Gracías, Santa Muerte.”_

_The relief turned to pain when the hood got tugged over his head and Carlos slowly rolled him onto his belly._

_“Don’t thank her too soon. I have no idea what’s going on, but it’s fishy as hell.” His fingers pulled at the ropes again that bound Rafael’s hands and it hurt just as much, alone the knowledge that Carlos didn’t want to hurt him made it bearable._

_In front of his eyes stretched the cracked and dirt covered expanse of yellowish stone that he had had the displeasure to look at from the exact same position for days now. It looked the same as the floor of the workshop. The room looked like the workshop, except everywhere his body touched it. Cool, with the easy slide of smoothest silk or straight-from-the-factory plastic panes._

_“Hey.” Rafael frowned. “What’s wrong with the floor?”_

_Carlos finally untangled the knot that held Rafael’s hand with his teeth, peeling it back from the bloody mess underneath._

_When the white hot pain receded, he lay on his back, eyes fixed onto the ceiling. The same ceiling. Spider cracks from one side to the other. Under him the floor was still smooth._

_Carlos just tied off a strip of cloth bandaging Rafael’s right fingers hand and grinned tiredly._

_“As I said, something is fishy here.”_

_Rafael grunted and slowly rolled to his knees, his right arm curled safely against his stomach but clearer in the head than he had been in… how long had it been?_

_“Did they drug us?”_

_“No drug that I know of and I know them all…”_

_In the back of Rafael’s head a thought scratched gently at his consciousness. A needle. But try as he might, he couldn’t come up with a drug that caused this level of sensory hallucinations without heavy mental influence either._

_He fought to his feet, swaying slowly when cramped muscles refused to obey on first try._

_Carlos did the same, standing just a little straighter, though he too curled inward to protect the boot sized bruises around his middle and his ribs, burns on his neck, the cuts that ran in a neat row down his stomach._

_Rafael didn’t have those. He had electricity burns to make up for it._

_“Guess we’ll have to find it out…,” Carlos said and didn’t move, too engrossed in studying every bit of damage on his friend’s body._

_“Sorry.” “You saying that got us into trouble in the first place.”_

_They talked simultanously and then they laughed. A little. More would’ve hurt too much. Maybe there were tripping after all._

 

_The door opened without trouble, swinging silently into the light of a late afternoon._

_“That door squeaked last time I heard it,” Rafael commented as he watched his friend move it slowly back and forth. He had learned to dread the sound of this door. “And it was locked.”_

_The stones in the pebble strewn courtyard were warm, the exact pleasant temperature like the air. They should have burned his naked feet, heated by a merciless sun all day. Looking up, not a cloud covered the sky from the distant hills to the edge of the main house. Nothing that could have cooled them._

_Only sun. Beautiful, warm, sun. Rafael lifted his face up and closed his eyes, just a moment to drive the chill from his bones, to greet the soft brush of the breeze, the only consolation he had been permitted in these last days._

_But the air around them remained absolutely still, no subtle sounds of a draft shifting around corners or sand brushing over stone, no rustling of little creatures. Nothing._

_“Like an indoor movie set.”_

_“Unreal…”_

_Rafael turned, turned again, bare feet scratching of the stone strewn ground and coming away without so much as a scratch. He hadn’t seen the surrounding of their prison before but he knew the desert, every Federal did. Had spent hours in the rocky expanses staring at cactuses and prickly bushes on their search for bodies or traces._

_Cactuses and prickly bushes and the occasional boulder were all there was before him now._

_No trace of a human, no car, no litter lying around, not even cigarette butts. Nothing but the house and the unnaturally still desert and the mute heat._

_“It’s as if they’d never been here in the first place. The hell is going on?”_

_They entered the house through another perfectly silent door and hadn’t yet passed the first room when the first shot rang out. The bullet tore through the window, missing Carlos by only a handspan. Howling laughter followed from the outside, along with the roar of a car engine, then a second and more shots._

_Fake or not, shots were shots._

_Rafael raced deeper into the house, towards the stairwell and up. High ground. A minimal advantage at least._

_“Guess they decided to make a hunt out of it,” he wheezed as he dropped against the wall, Carlos next to him with not a scratch._

_“They had to end it at some point…” Carlos grinned. “There’s worse ways to go. Adrenalin is a great painkiller.”_

_Rafael chuckled and closed his eyes, head resting against the smooth, cool stone behind him._

_It was, indeed. Everything seemed distant, even the dull throb of his broken fingers, the burn of his overtaxed muscles, the cuts, the broken ribs. The fear._

_“Or they drugged us after all,” he added._

_“Nice of them… “_

_Rafael sighed softly in the silence of guns reloading. A lone bullet cut through the wooden slat covering the window of what once maybe hat been a bedroom and imbedded in the ceiling. No dust fell._

_“You wanna fight?” He turned his head to the left and the ruin that was his best friend’s face._

_He hadn’t seen him since the day on the road, the admission of his impossible fear. Had only heard his pain echo through the empty house, had sometimes heard how Carlos yelled his name when the pain threatened to break his mind and Rafael had screamed until his voice had given in._

_Rafael had lied for both of them, spun stories until he didn’t know the truth anymore. Always the same threats. The net knows what you did. Bohoo. Remember, remember, the fifth of November._

_The collective cannot be killed. Ghosts and faceless fear of people who thought that ‘hacker’ was some mythical designation and not just a very banal combination of 1s and 0s and some fancy toys._

_Carlos believed that._

_Another bullet ripped a slat off the window and Carlos shrugged._

_“Might as well,” he said and grimaced. “You know I’m sorry, right?”_

_That was, when he heard the giggle. A sound, not unlike a bird’s, high-pitched and trilling in the still air, even over the impacts of the shots in the walls. He knew it. He would have known it everywhere._

_“NO!” Rafael jumped up, the aches in his body forgotten, and stormed towards the window, only to be stopped at the last second by a firm hand on his arm that tore him down again._

_“Rafa!”_

_“Let me!”_

_“Rafa, think! Would she giggle?” Carlos grabbed both his arms and shook him. “THINK!”_

_Rafael sank into himself when the thought filtered through. “Díos!”_

_“A recording?”_

_Outside - not the window, the room - it came again._

_The sound of a little girl jumping over stones, laughing happiness as she managed a particularly difficult trick. A little girl ducking her face into her arms, yelling “Papa, you’re silly.”. A little girl watching her cats tumble over the porch._

_“They’re inside.”_

_Rafael grabbed what subpar weapon he could off the floor, a piece of fallen crown moulding, and stumbled to his feet, out the door._

_She stood in the hallway, with her hair pulled into neatly into two braids, as they only were right in the morning before she had a chance to jump head first into the nearest haystack. She still wore the same blue tunic he had left her in, sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of chocolate and a bowl of Zucaritas._

_“Am I dreaming?” Carlos came up short behind Rafael, a half crumbling chair leg in his hand while Alejandra in front of them twirled around and ran down the hallway._

_“You might,” Rafael conceded. “No way in hell is that my daughter.”_

_“Ey! Aleja!” Carlos called and the little girl stopped. Outside, the occasional bullet hit the building but other than that silence reigned. “Come here, mija. When mamacita goes to the market, what does she bring?”_

_Rafael took a deep breath when he heard the secret phrase they had taught her, just to be sure. Just in case something happened and they needed to establish identity._

_The answer was a simple. Quesadillas for a negative answer, zapatos for a positive._

_The little girl tilted her head and gave them a gap toothed grin. “Zapatos y sueños.”_

_“Aleja!” Rafael had only a moment to yell after her then she turned with a laugh and danced down the stairs and out the door._

_Silence. No shots, no yells, no bullets hitting flesh or heart tearing screams. Just nothing._

_“That was...” Carlos pushed a hand through his hair. “Rafa…”_

_“As real as any of this. Like the walls and floors that don’t feel like walls. Like the stones that have the wrong temperature or the desert that makes no sound.” Rafael bumped heavily against a wall and closed his eyes. “What if nothing of this is real?”_

_“...How?”_

_He shrugged. “What if it’s giving us what we want to see the most? Freedom.” His face fell. “The person i’ve thought of the most since … all of this. That’s what she looked like before we… the last time I saw her. What did her tunic look like to you?”_

_“Blue,” Carlos answered without hesitation._

_“Exactly. Did you see her that morning?” Rafael’s voice caught when Carlos shook his head._

_“Whatever this is, the weird walls, the wrong everything, it just pulled Aleja straight out of my head?”_

_Carlos stared at him, eyes squinting dangerously in the dusty half light that fell through the shuttered windows._

_“The walls are there,” as if in demonstration he reached out and ran his hand over the wall to feel the smoothness. “They are just wrong. As if someone placed a wall like object in a computer game and then slapped a texture over it but left out both bump and displacement maps.”_

_“Someone pondered how the wall looked but not how it feels?” Carlos caught on quickly._

_“Yes. And it means that someone pondered these wall. I am really thinking about level editors in games right now.”_

_Carlos stared at him for a long moment, his lips pursed in thought. Finally he nodded and vanished into the room they had just ran out of. Only a few seconds later he walked back out, his Mossberg 500 service shotgun in hand and a triumphant grin on his face._

_“I pondered murder.”_

 

Across him Emma smiled with a bright sheen to her eyes. She understood, one architect to another, just like Faraday who bend over to press a kiss to Vasquez’ shoulder. A soft ‘Well done.’ that he desperately needed.

“We locked them in and gave them hell. Woke up sooner than them and faster but not by much.” His hands shook in front of him with a sudden wave of regret. “By far not enough. Just a chance, not... “

“They were five, we were two. And in the end they were dead and we were…”

 

_The gentle breeze of the setting evening brushed in through the broken window, whipping his hair around his face, but he smiled, face turned towards it like a lover would towards his lady._

_It had long driven the stench of gasoline and smoke from the car, driving the horrors of the house in the desert from their minds the farther they got away and the four bodies burning within._

_Rafael hadn’t known one of them, of his so called teammates only García had stuck around and he had left before the crazy guy with the metal case had appeared._

_He dared cast a quick glance behind him to the backseat where that metal case sat, silver hull gleaming dully in the golden glow of the sunset._

_“You can figure it out later, you know?”_

_Rafael barely heard Carlos’ voice over the roar of the gravel road and the wind._

_“Yes, after I got you to the hospital.” His eyes involuntarily slipped to the bump where Carlos hands pressed on the bullet wound on his gut._

_“No.”_

_Carlos smiled and blinked slowly, opening his eyes again only after a fortifying breath._

_Rafael refused to look over when he shook his head, lips pressed tightly. It had been 30 minutes._

_He hadn’t wasted any time. It had been necessary to burn the house. It had also been necessary to take what they could get - including the body of the owner of the metal case. Carlos had looked alright. In pain, yes, but not like…_

_Too small under the cover of a thermal blanket, dark skin ashen and his smile far away, already gone in his heart._

_“Rafa,” he whispered but Rafael heard it loud and clear. “Stop. I don’t want to go alone.”_

_He braked carefully only out of the last shred of sense he still had to not aggravate the wound, then he was out the car and on the other side, tearing the door open as if enough force could scare away death._

_“You will not go at all, you asshole! You hear me? Carlos!”_

_“Ah, Rafito, one out of two isn’t bad, when you had no chance to begin with, right?”_

_Rafael gathered him into his arms, brushing through the sweaty hair with broken fingers haphazardly taped together._

_“And you need to watch over my princess.” He struggled through another breath and open his eyes once more. “Don’t let them get you, hermanito. Promise me.”_

_Tears sat like a lump of lead somewhere in Rafael’s chest, a balled fist unable, unwilling to let go of what little strength he had._

_“Hey,” he choked instead, “remember…”_

_A million memories tumbled through his head but none stuck out most worthy to make it the most precious, not even the stupid kiss Carlos had given him at 17, just so Rafael knew if kissing a boy felt different. Nothing could conquer the knowledge that there would be no new memories._

_“Lo prometo,” He said instead, his lips brushing softly over Carlos forehead. “You be careful out there and…”_

_Carlos’s rested peacefully against Rafael’s shoulder, smiling._

 

 

“A little faster. If we’d been a little less damaged. Anything… If we had been less far out or… I don’t know…We were one bullet away from a miracle and then...”

The news on the tv showed Bart Bogue’s face again, the photo from his company website, not the nervous man he was said to have become in recent months, killing development project after project, getting caught in more and more contradictions in court.

Vasquez leaned his head back against Faraday’s shoulder and curled his hands tighter over his partner’s.

“Had been better to bury Carlos out there before I crossed the border,” he admitted lowly to no one in particular, “but I wanted him home, not another missing person that the deaert had swallowrd whole, familx waiting forever. We’ve seen too many families wait.

I dropped him off were he’d be found. Then I burned the last body with the car in the desert. Arranged an accident in a ravine.”

He took a deep breath and grabbed the water bottle off the floor to wet his parched throat.

“Let that one speak for itself,” he added after a few jittery gulps.

“To feed their insecurity about your fate…” Goodnight spoke from the other side of the couch, understanding in his voice. “An impasse. They didn’t know where you were and what you did with the information, or if you were even still alive but as long as nothing happened to your family, nothing would happen to these information,” Goodnight said in the approving tone of a proud teacher. “Bravo.”

„What I did was not a hero’s thing, Goody.” Vasquez shook his head against the praise he saw in Goodnight’s eyes. “I ran and I hid. I had a one or two day window to go back and get rid of them all. I didn’t. Instead I slinked over the border just hoping they swallowed the bait and let fear deter them from…”

“The question that begs to be asked here, mon ami, is rather: In how bad a shape were you? Judging from what you told us, I’d assume the injuries were not on the light side.”

Faraday’s hand slid unbidden Vasquez’ right shoulder blade, his thumb gently rubbing around the bone and the ring of scared dots he knew were there. Faraday had never mentioned them, he just sometimes, when they lay curled against each other, let his lips linger a little longer, his arms tugging Vasquez tighter against him.

Vasquez pressed back into the touch and ran both his hands through his hair.

“García got away. So they had the warning. As long as I stayed dead they never had a reason to risk...”  Vasquez turned to Emma, a fresh wave of dread rising. “Emma... if they find out…”

“They won’t.”

She stood, all impressive 5’6 of her, in her faded jeans and the worn shirt that Vasquez was sure had belonged to her husband.

“The pingback came to me because my case was active. Theirs has been dormant for years and I caught it before the technician could even so much as think of informing anybody. “ She made a face that could have been as much her opinion about Interpol as it might be about him. “I seriously wanna hug you right now, Vasquez. But I’m not stupid enough to try. I will tell you this, though…” Her hands brushed nervously down the front of her jeans as she took two steps towards him.

“You came, ready to shoot me?” he joked without humor, petty revenge because she had known exactly what she had been doing to him earlier.

“No!” She protested immediately, only to relent a moment later with a small smile. “Maybe a little. You scared me.”

At Vasquez’ back, Faraday glared loud enough to be heard by the force of the waves of anger he gave off alone. He acquiesced a fraction at the slow movement of Vasquez’ hand on his arm but tensed immediately when Emma went on.  

“A new English teacher has been appointed to the elementary school in San Juan Verde.”

Vasquez’ heart jumped, a sudden, impossible moment of weightlessness, lost in the words that kept pouring out of Emma’s mouth.

“He has a favorite student, gifted young girl, who loves languages and math.”

“...and hates history.” Vasquez completed her sentence, eyes closed against the sheer magnitude of everything exploding in his heart. He felt Faraday’s arms tighten and heard his choked: “Alejandra” from somewhere far away.

“It may not always look like it but Teddy is very good at what he does and he will watch over your daughter as if his life depends on it.”

Faraday breathed softly into Vasquez neck, in and out, in and out, barely holding on to his own temperament.

“Red Harvest met with your sister not quite two weeks ago because they needed a temporary hand with autumn approaching.” She pulled phone from her pocket and dropped it onto the table, next to his abandoned beer. “He awaits your phone call if you want to let them know you’re not dead.”

This time, Emma reached out and cupped his face, words too loud and eyes too bright for someone in her job, too damn hopeful when she should know better that nothing ended this well in their world.

“Say the word and we’ll bring them here.”

“To what? Whither in the city? Hidden in an apartment block, looking over their shoulders? Always scared of everyone who speaks Spanish?”

Emma Cullen shouldn’t hope as she did. She wouldn’t survive for long if she got broken over it again and again like she had over Matthew. But somehow, her hope also held a power that Vasquez had long exchanged for survival instinct.  

“Did you know that Red Harvest’s family owned a ranch that he had wanted to buy back for years now? They were raising horses, mostly. He just never really made an attempt for it, first because of money and now… he has no time to take care of a ranch. Let alone buying horses and breeding them.”

Her hand combed through his hair, adding more touch to the warm, angry wall at his back.

“If you say no, Vasquez, then we will pull back. An accident will happen to the blood sample, the case will get marked as low priority. Teddy will do his stint as idealistic young teacher and Red Harvest will have a sudden family emergency.”

“Why?” he croaked.

He understood Faraday. Vasquez just had the dumb luck that the man had fallen for him. But neither Emma nor Sam had any deeper reason to do this for him. Heck, if they wanted him to work for them, the thing with Riley alone - oh, the satisfaction - had been enough to indebt him for a lifetime, this though…

“You’re an idiot, Vasquez. You desperately need friends.” She smiled, first at him, raw and bleeding, then politely up at Billy when he handed her a glass with amber liquid that she pushed into Vasquez’ hand.

She let him empty the tumbler of expensive bourbon before reaching out again, trembling fingers against the scruff shading his cheeks and her voice a mirror of his own, years ago after Stéphane had plucked him from a botched job and poured him a glass of Bordeaux on his veranda on the cliffs above the Atlantic.

“How do you do it?” Her eyes searched his face for an answer that she already knew. “It seemed so clear cut when we won.”

Vasquez lifted his hand and gently wrapped it around her softer ones welcoming the way she turn to face the touch with a painful smile. “One step in front of the other. You keep going. You can’t lose pain of the ones in your heart, hermanita. They are your heart. Unless you want to lose it, too.” His eyes caught Goodnight’s in the background, the way he calmly rolled a joint and handed it to Faraday.

“Sometimes …” Vasquez shook his head. “Victory is surviving alone.”

Emma nodded with red-rimmed eyes, a smile forcing its way through the threatening tears that she didn’t allow to fall.

“The identity should keep you safe.” And then she squared her shoulders and looked him square in the eye. “But if it helps...I’ll take these information, too.”

 


	12. Epilogue I - ...then it's not the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a little longer than I had planned. About 5k words longer.  
> I blame Vasquez.  
> Which is why I divided it in two parts to make it easier to read.
> 
>  
> 
> This is part 2 of 2. If you haven't read Chapter 11 yet, please go back and do so :D

(.... continued from Chapter 11)

  
Vasquez lumbered up the stairs ahead of Faraday and into their shared set of rooms like a man who dragged the world’s weight behind him but still had to go on. Faraday had no problem to stir him towards the bathroom and the fucking hot shower he needed.

Vasquez didn’t even put up a token protest, he walked where Faraday gently pushed him and stopped when Faraday did, standing on the plush rug in the middle of the room with his bare feet and his empty gaze, worrying his lower lip as if he could take back the words he had spoken earlier.

He didn’t move while Faraday dimmed the lights to candle setting and turn on the shower to scalding heat. Vasquez liked heat.

He stood rooted to the spot with his arms crossed and his gaze fixed to the wall, the warmth of his eyes gone and replaced by an inky blackness in the low light.

“Hey.” Faraday slipped his hand over the crossed arms and carefully opened them.

“I’m ok,” Vasquez mumbled and that was some “I never had a sexual relationship with Miss Lewinski” level bullshit if Faraday had ever heard it.

“No, you’re not,” he countered and curled his palm around Vasquez’ jaw. “If there’s a point in the universe where ok is a thing, you’re on the exact opposite, sweetheart. C’mon, let’s get you in the shower.”

Vasquez eyed him with tired, docile eyes and no resistance when Faraday lifted his shirt up and over his head. He stood in silence, his hands curled loosely by his side. An old warrior who had forgotten how to fight.

“I’m not… you know?” Vasquez finally said as Faraday had already moved to his belt and the buttons of his jeans - ridiculously sexy on the man and yeah, Faraday would forever think fondly on the day he found out that Vasquez owned jeans. But that was neither here nor there right now. Not now.

“Not what?” Faraday stilled his hands and looked up into the eerily serene face of his shell shocked partner.

“The opposite of ok. I’ve been there.” .

“I know. And you’ve made it out. But right now? You need someone to help you remember that.” He bent his head and very gently brushed his lips over a faded scar that cut a short line left of Vasquez navel. “Get in the shower, compadre.”

Vasquez nostrils flared where normally he would have offered some scathing commentary about Faraday’s pronunciation, but he did as he was told, shoved the jeans off his hips - no underwear, fucking tease - and shuffled into the shower stall.  

Faraday put out two fluffy towels for later and grabbed a piece of the goats milk soap from the little cupboard in their bathroom that Goodnight, God bless his fancy soul, insisted on keeping stocked with luxury products.  Nobody needed that stuff but  Vasquez liked it like he liked flashy clothes and bling and classical music that went far over Joshua’s head.

There might have been a senseless fight about that, started by Vasquez habit of bringing a GTFO bag everywhere and Faraday’s hangups about his own upbringing and the vacancies in his education. He might have called his lover a wannabe posh in the worst English accent he could fake and accused him of waiting for an excuse to leave the stupid white trash whore.

Worry might have notched his temper up a level or two in the days before Vasquez checked into the hospital.

Thinking about it… Faraday looked over his shoulder to the man that hadn’t moved once since he had crammed himself into the far corner of the shower stall, his hands pressed against the glass and the wall, like an uprooted tree that only the next immovable object kept from falling.

He had no business judging any workaround Vasquez had had to take to keep himself together years ago. He had a business unwrapping this bar of fancy soap, getting naked and getting under the scalding hot jungle rain shower and to his man.

“Hey, just me,” he announced himself, rolling the bar slowly between his fingers under the water, using the whole size of the oversized showerstall to give Vasquez space to acclimatize to his presence.

“You don’t need to treat me like a psych case just because you know, Josh. I’m not.”

Faraday stepped forward, slowly, and pressed a kiss to Vasquez nape, settling his soapy hands gently against his lover’s side after he dumped the soap itself on the rack.

“You remember when I told you about my father, Vasquez? How you immediately tried to make me feel better.”

“I did,” Vasquez protested, muffled by the rush of the water and the way his face hid between his arms.

“Shut up, V. Let me take care of you.”

When no further protest came, Faraday slid his hand up, over the bullet scar and the tattoo, drawing them back, over Vasquez shoulderblades and up again over his shoulders in slow, reverent motions that said all the words Faraday’s usually so eloquent brain refused to conjure.

About bravery, about strength that so far surpassed his own, about the ability to head on face horrors that broke about anybody else, or about the little stutter Faraday’s heart did when he saw Vasquez sauntering around a corner, his long legs eating up the meters, closer and closer, his hips swaggering their way through life with the reassurance worthy a king. Soft apologies for not understanding, even through acceptance, Vasquez’ insane need for secrecy.

His hands painted them onto his lover’s body with the soft glide of warm water and let the tension holding Vasquez hostage drain with the suds down the smoothly polished tiles.

Faraday lathered up his hands again to work his fingers down and around Vasquez’ shoulder blades, digging carefully into the scarred skin and below, into the knots that forced the rigid set of his muscles.

“Lady luck really favored me with you,” he whispered, lips against the shell of his lover’s ear. They weren’t prone to gentle love making, their time in bed more often than not turning into a sweaty tug o’ war, a game of oneupmanship, a test to see who could best reduce the other to incoherency.  

He was fine with the lack of an answer, though. The way Vasquez shuddered as Faraday eased up on the pressure and just slid a soapy hand up his spine until he could dig his fingers into the dark curls on his nape was enough. A light tug, careful not to force Vasquez from his chosen salt pillar position, and he moved lower again, down his back, sweeping only briefly over the perfect arch of his ass and back to the front, up the firm plane of his belly to his chest.

Vasquez breath hitched against the touch, a slow trembling given voice that ran from his feet all the way up to where Faraday’s hand brushed over his nipples, for once not a bad thought in sight.

“What do you need, cariño?” Faraday asked when Vasquez shivered again, pressing back into the space Faraday had very deliberately kept.

Instead of an answer, his lover turned, left arm falling to Faraday’s waist, the right curving around his shoulder to pull them flush.

He captured Faraday’s lips in a soft kiss, teeth teasing lightly over the sensitive skin and his tongue painting patterns against Faraday’s that reminded of a leisurely dance.

“You,” he murmured and closed his eyes to wander lower with his ministration, a pattern of nibs along Faraday’s jaw, teeth closing over the skin on his neck before Vasquez sucked it between his lips to bruise.

“Oil,” he added, like an afterthought, leaving it to Faraday to reach the top shelf and grab the small bottled stored there, almost not at all distracted by the way Vasquez hips rut against his.

His breath hitched in his throat when those lips welcomed him back, arms holding him in place as if Vasquez couldn’t bring himself to ease his grip and risk Faraday slip away.

That was alright. He could work with that.

“We have oil stored in the shower, Vasquez,” he commented, half accusingly, already uncorking the bottle anyway. “Gimme your hand, you ingrate.”

Vasquez lifted his head to look at Faraday and somewhere in the warm eyes, humor sparked. “I like water, Guero.”

Faraday squeezed a generous dollop of oil into the offered palm and put the bottle back. His hands, free from the confines of Vasquez desperate grip held his lover’s face for another kiss as Faraday leaned into him, chest to chest, their cocks stroking against each other in a slow glide, just keeping the warmth without stoking the fire. And that was fine by Faraday, he knew…

Vasquez fingers slid into him like an easy caress, expecting little resistance to this particular intrusion, familiar… welcome. He widened his stance, weight resting against Vasquez and held by a strong arm, teeth grazing over Vasquez collarbone where his forehead brushed against Vasquez’ shoulder.

“Rafa…”

The name sounded so much heavier today, so much more important, a secret shared despite… well everything.

“Sí, Guero?” Vasquez smiled, a heavy, darker expression as he worked his fingers into Faraday’s ass, scissoring to prepare him for the intrusion, pulling with all the world’s time, soft moans from Faraday’s lips.

“You’re a fucking tease,” he laughed it into his boyfriend’s skin and was rewarded with a small laugh in return.

“No my fault, cariño. You are too beautiful like this, moving into me like you need it so bad.”

“And now it’s my fault again, Mr. World’s Best Lover.”

Vasquez smiled again and curled his fingers, drawing a sound from Faraday he would deny ever having made, a breathy, shaking moan that consisted of “Rafael!” and not much else.

Before he even could give voice to his need, Vasquez maneuvered him until their places were traded, Faraday nestled into that corner with his hands pressed against the warmed glass and tiles, crowded safely by Vasquez taller body.

“¿Está bien?” Vasquez always asked and the answer was always the same.

“Yeah, it’s bien,” Faraday choked out, pushing back into the hands positioning his hips and the blunt pressure against his ass.

No matter how many months, he didn’t think he would ever get used to that feeling, to that little groan, Vasquez made when he slid into him. Like a thirsty man who finally found a well, or an outlaw who found a safe haven. Sometimes, he kept thinking, it sounded like Faraday were his home.  

Faraday shuddered into a stroke of an inquisitive tongue up the sensitive skin of his shoulder, travelling slowly up his neck and into Vasquez’ low chuckle.

“Beautiful.”

His right hand reached up to curl around Faraday’s, effortlessly holding him in place while his left stroked along Faraday’s length, slick with water and oil and an instinctive knowledge of how much pressure his boyfriend needed to rise and rise to every push of Vasquez inside him, every whispered word of praise against the skin of neck.

Asked afterwards, Faraday would forever have denied how quickly he came under Vasquez expert ministrations, but with the way Vasquez fucked him in leisurely strokes, the heat, the water, the broken emotions of the night....

He choked Vasquez name into his mouth, holding on to his hands as he tipped over the edge, pliant under his lover’s touch as Vasquez took his fill.

 

***

 

Vasquez hadn’t bothered turning on the light in his room, the moon and the diffuse light from the downstairs windows the only illumination around his silhouette in the open balcony window. He hadn’t bothered with more than a pair of pants either - pointman pants, pitch black slacks with the silver studded belt hanging open, a glittering monument to his state of mind. Or perhaps to the effort Goody had put into getting him to relax.

The sweet, herb smell wafted through the room like the cloud in a hippie commune.

Faraday fished a pack of cigarillos off Vasquez desk as he passed, lighting one up before he stepped to the window, comfortably slinging an arm around his partner’s hip.

“Guess, we’ll have to cut back on quite a few bad habits with a kid around,” he opened a conversation that nobody hopefully was ever prepared to have.

Vasquez’ only answer was a grumpy grunt and another deep drag on the joint. Light on the herbal side, just to take off the sting, Goodnight had said. Faraday believed him, though ‘light on the herbal’ side might mean a bit of a different interpretation with Goody’s amount of self-medication.

Faraday let his boyfriend stew in silence, chin hooked over his shoulder and his fingers caressing patterns that nobody would ever know where little hearts, onto his stomach. He just wished he had brought his own Gauloises. The cigarillos were outright disgusting, but short of stealing the joint - which he didn’t do - he wouldn’t leave Vasquez, not even for those two minutes.

“I am not that man anymore,” Vasquez finally spoke with his eyes fixed onto the darkness outside. “He wouldn’t have survived…”

Faraday hummed into Vasquez’ shoulder and said nothing.

“I don’t know if I can be him again, Guero…” Something in Vasquez voice broke.

“Hey!” Faraday brushed a kiss against his lover’s neck and hugged him closer. “Hey, they’re not the same people anymore either. They survived as well. It will be ok, Vasquez.” He hesitated and then just went ahead. “Rafael. We got you.”

The flinch as Faraday used his name was minuscule, it still felt wrong.

“It’s so weird to use that name and not have your dick in me.”

Vasquez sought Faraday’s gaze in the mirroring glass of the window and raised an eyebrow.

“...or the other way round.” Faraday added and grinned.

Vasquez snorted and turned his head, mahogany eyes shadowed by a heavy lidded gaze, far from stoned but something in his face had settled from the terrible weight he'd been carrying around.

"You're taking this awfully well, Guero. Alejandra and all."

For a moment Faraday pondered lying before he shrugged.

"I am too relieved that she’s alive to think about much else right now."

Vasquez hand holding the joint dropped from his lips. "You knew...."

Faraday wanted to rage at the terrible suspicion in his voice, the walls he had learned to hate already coming up.

"She told me,” he admitted. “In Rose Creek."

_“What?”_

“Don’t look at me like that. That was exactly my reaction.”

Vasquez under his hand tensed until his breath stuttered, faster and faster then shuddering to a standstill, his eyes losing their focus. And then he shivered and raised the joint back to his lips.

“...and didn’t say a word.” The words sounded more hurt than angry but that was almost worse.

Faraday ducked past him, out onto the balcony and into the sweltering Louisiana night air to catch Vasquez’ face in his hands.

“Listen, it’s bad enough to suddenly have a leading role in a secret baby plot with the frenemy that you spent the night with just because his subconscious somehow formed an attachment to you of all people. Especially if you want to spend more nights with him,” Faraday said and leaned in to press a kiss to Vasquez slowly relaxing lips.

“I seriously wasn’t about to talk to you about your dead kid, alright? Because a) dead kid and b) whenever someone comes too close to your secrets, you close up like a clam, c) kids in general are the exact opposite of my field of expertise.”

Against Faraday’s lips, Vasquez snorted what might amount to an actual laugh, hooking the thumb of his left hand into Faraday’s jeans, his version of a hug with the impaired arm.

“She isn’t dead. She’s a very lively 11-year-old that loves horses, video games, Disney movies and Taylor Swift. SHe's an accomplished rodeo rider and thinks Iron Man is cool.” He took a drag and carefully blew the smoke not in Faraday’s direction. “I’m a little afraid of how well you two might get along.”

And there it was…the assumption that Faraday would have anything to do with her. Sudden responsibility. Real and not just as an extension of Vasquez.

“I never wanted kids,” he admitted and fixed his eyes on the medallion at the hollow of Vasquez' throat. St. Michael. Who the hell wore a totem like that and still claimed to not care about law and order? “Aside from the whole being a flaming gay… It’s always only been me and my mom. And her pimps. Whose job was to mostly beat me up to teach me to be quiet. So…” he looked up just in time to see Vasquez' face fall. “I’d be a terrible father.”

“Oh…ok,” Vasquez said, softly.

Faraday leaned in and whispered. “I’d be a terrific uncle, though. I’m a hoot with bad ideas.”

This time, Vasquez hugged him for real. He flicked the last bit of the joint over the balcony railing and caught Faraday’s lips in a kiss. A quick peck with teeth, before he crushed him against his chest, holding on for dear life.

“If I even do it…,” he mumbled into Faraday’s hair, doing what he did best, deflection and hiding.

“Bullshit. Cariño, you decided the moment Emma gave you the phone,” Faraday shot back, words muffled with his face mashed against Vasquez’ neck.

Vasquez let go with a sigh and let Faraday walk him backward across the room towards the bed, lucky for all involved, much more in order than Faraday’s own.

The only thing that kept Vasquez from falling once there, were Faraday’s hands clamping around his arms with a laugh. “Hola amigo, you may not sound stoned, but if I were you, I wouldn’t try dancing right now.”

“I can’t talk to my mother when I’m high,” Vasquez responded but not even he seemed to believe it. He sat when Faraday lowered him onto the bed, the light and shadow planes of his face turned upwards like a shipwrecked searching the shore. Or a lost puppy looking for the next best sympathetic human. He did that well. Puppy eyes.

Faraday captured his lips with a kiss. “If you don’t want to, it’s fine.”

Vasquez' eyes widened even more, pleading for leniency in a game they sometimes played, free from any seriousness they both were capable of.

“No,” Faraday chided. “Stop stalling. You are not stoned, you are scared.” Then he laughed as Vasquez slung both arms around his middle with a heavy huff and buried his face against Faraday’s stomach.  

“At least let them know, Rafael…” Technically they were in bed and the use of the name allowed even under normal circumstances. “Maybe they don’t want to come. But, heck… I would want to know that they didn’t torture you to death and buried you in the desert, you know?”

Vasquez glanced up, turning his head aside with a frown and a shrug. “Taking responsibility is not always my strongest..." His sigh hung heavily between them. "I can’t shake the thought that I failed her."

Faraday halted in the motion of brushing his fingers through Vasquez damp curls, waiting him out to finish speaking.

“My parents… when I got her mother pregnant, they said…” He chuckled. “‘You fuck up, you put up!’ We help you but you need to step up. Her mother was on her way to Mexico City to study medicine. I was just finished with uni, we had the ranch and enough family to raise a little girl. I just never felt I did enough, you know?” He shook his head. “Protecting a team I can do. They’re fully dependent on you but they chose to be. Ali had no choice. Not that her mother didn’t want her, not even later and not that she was saddled with me.”

“Yeah…” Faraday rolled his eyes in the safety of the darkness. “Extreme hardship right there. She should hate you for protecting her from a distance for years. How dare you?”

Looking down, he found Vasquez still frowning and caught his lips again, whispering into his mouth a few truths that rested in a faint, undefined anger so old he couldn’t remember a time when it hadn’t been there. As if there had never been a time when didn't know that his mother was a total failure. “How dare you love her so much that you get up again with three bullets holes because you are scared to death that someone discovers your ruse.”

The cynism cut, dripping like acid from Faraday’s voice until Vasquez jerked into the easy embrace Faraday’s arms formed around his shoulders.

“Stop analyzing me, Guero,” he finally said.

“The moment you stop overthinking everything. That’s Sam’s job.”

Vasquez chortled into the cheap shirt with the words 'Soup of the Day: Whiskey' emblazoned on the front that Faraday had thrown on in after the shower. “Sam’s job is to get us into trouble.”

He lifted his head with a sigh and instantly forced a crooked proximation of a smile on his face before he let himself fall backwards onto the bed.

“I guess, then mine is flair and motivation,” Faraday deadpanned and grabbed the phone off the nightstand to wriggled it into Vasquez’ vague direction until his boyfriend extended a hand and he could drop it in.  

 

 

They ended up curled into each other against the headboard, Vasquez' head on Faraday’s shoulder with the phone in his hand like a detonator or a hand grenade he might need to get rid off quickly. Even the ringtone sounded ominous.

The shockingly cheerful voice on the other side, when Red Harvest finally picked up, not so much.

"Secretario de la familia de Alvarez, ¿Nate hablando?"

Silence reigned supreme in Louisiana and it lasted long enough that Faraday expected Vasquez to just cut the connection.

Instead, Vasquez snapped, "Espere.... ¿tú hablas español?"

Faraday by now understood enough Spanish to get the gist of it, and truth, it was funny when Red Harvest did the audible equivalent to a shrug and he sounded god damn smug.  
"Un poco…”

“Wait…,” Faraday cut in when Vasquez only stared at the phone like a dumbfounded fish with his mouth hanging open. “Your name is _Nate?_ ”

This earned him a laugh but no answer, nothing but the sound of a door opening and heavy footsteps on a porch.

By the time Red Harvest had arrived wherever he wanted to go, Vasquez had found his voice again. He put Red on speaker and dropped the phone on Faraday’s chest, closing his eyes as if the bit of energy he needed to keep them open was the one bit too much.  

“How are they?” Vasquez asked with a soft voice. At first Faraday wasn’t sure Red Harvest had heard and prepared to repeat it, but of course Red had. The little shithead plain didn’t like quick answers.

“Hrm….” Red Harvest thought. “Well, I’d say. They _are_ well. But also… hurt, deep down. Scars that make everything less easy.”

“Me.” The fingers of Vasquez’ right hand curled into the meat of Faraday’s side, holding on.

“You. Your father. But mostly you. Your mother prays every day for the Virgin of Guadalupe to protect you.”

“I can’t…” Whatever Vasquez tried to say, he choked it off in the next second.

Red Harvest didn’t react to whatever Vasquez had wanted to say, he just did what he was doing. Whatever that was at Midnight in the middle of nowhere in Mexico that sounded like empty tin cans and rusty buckets being dragged...

“Wait, are you building stumbling blocks. Is that an early warning system?”

“Vasquez,” Red Harvest ignored Faraday’s incredulous question. “I have a question. It is an important question. Will you help me? As a friend and brother?”

“With...what?”

The man on the other side paused every sound before he spewed out the words in rapid fire staccato. “What are Andrea’s favorite flowers?”

“¡absolutamente no!”

“¡Oh por favor!” Red Harvest sounded …  not quite desperate, not quite hopeful. 

Not that Faraday cared… “Tell him, Vasquez,” he said and ignored Vasquez’ betrayed look in the unhealthy glow of the phone’s light.. “Give her a chance to kick his teeth. Don’t deprive her like that.”

Vasquez gnashed his teeth as he thumped his head against Faraday’s shoulder, not bothering to slow the impact.

“Wildflowers. No roses. She hates roses. I can’t believe you did that.”

Red Harvest’s laughter slowed to a decidedly evil snicker that Faraday much approved of.

“That is my sister, Red Harvest!”

“It is better to hate me than to fear them.” The clanging had stopped, replaced by the sound of boots on heavy wood. “She is also a good woman, intelligent, beautiful, good with horses and people. She deserves flowers.”

A door on Red’s side of the connection opened and the sound of the boots changed.

Vasquez’ breath quickened, a dozen little storms per minute brushing over Faraday’s skin and no amount of tugs on Vasquez’ hair and slow strokes over his shoulders could change that.

Faraday knew, one word from Vasquez and Red would stop but it might already be too...

“Senora Alvarez?”

Against Faraday’s shoulder, Vasquez’ breath hitched when Red began to explain something on the other end that Faraday could only interpret loosely with his still limited Spanish.

An apology, as much he understood, also the invocation of the magic three letters F-B-I.

They both heard her gasp Vasquez’ real name before Red even could admit to it.

“...soy un amigo de tu hijo.”

On this side of the phone, Vasquez went preternaturally still, silent like a predator ready to strike or a deer paralyzed by terror, Faraday didn’t know which anymore. All he knew was his lover’s sound as his mother took the phone.

“Rafael!” He actually ducked his head at the tone and melted as she gentled it immediately. “Mijo…”

Vasquez took a deep breath against Faraday’s neck, breathing his scent before he pushed up and sat back against the headboard.

“Hola, mamá.

 


	13. Epilogue II

Vasquez shifted into a new position for the umpteenth time in the hour they had spent parked offroad between the yellow walls of a small canyon.

He carefully folded his left shin under his right thigh and resettled sprawling across both passenger seats of their armored SUV.

“Sore?” Faraday asked with a smug little smile, catching Vasquez’ eyeroll in the rearview mirror. In his ear, the open comline crackled.

“Un poco.” Vasquez lit up a cigarillo. “It’s normal after that much time.”

“So, your ass needs to get used to it?”

In the mirror, Vasquez smirked.

“Sí. The more you do it, the less the pain.”

Over coms, someone wheezed. Faraday suspected Goodnight.

“Do it more then.”

“Alone it’s less fun, Guero. So, unless we get you up…”

The wheezing dissolved into choking laughter, followed by an audible sigh from Sam.

“Faraday, com discipline exists for a reason. The same goes for you Vasquez. We know you are nervous, but please….”

“We are just talking about his horse, Sam! You should’ve seen him. They barely had time to unload Sombra before Vasquez already jumped on his back. We can count ourselves lucky that he put a saddle on!”

Above them, somewhere on the canyon’s walls, Goodnight and Billy fought hard to contain their amusement. Same went for Emma in the command van, and if Sam wasn’t at least smiling, Faraday’d eat his own hat. None of that mattered though. Not when Vasquez looked out the window with that lost little smile, all darkness and danger in his tactical gear setup, combat boots to shirt and tac vest and yet so...

So…

Faraday turned off his mic before he murmured a soft “Hey,” and slowly reach over to tighten Vasquez vest. “It’ll be fine. After today, your family will be off the radar.”

“Huh?” Vasquez turned back, tearing his thousand yard stare off the barren scenery. “That’s what you think, I..?”

Running both hands over his face, he sighed and gave a decisive nod. “It will be good. If they are followed, Goodnight will see soon enough, but I don’t think they will. We’ll swap cars. Theirs will drive west and …”

He lost his words again and reached for the thermos at his feet, the second today, and if he kept drinking coffee like that, his heartbeat would break the soundbarrier soon. He already finished a pack of cigarillos since they had set out the night before.

Vasquez sipped his coffee, no milk today, and called up Spotify on his phone, lone ruler over the audio system of the SUV the whole drive to New Mexico. Faraday already expected the worst from his partner’s eclectic musical taste and was not disappointed.

“Joan Baez, really? She’s been dead since before I was born, man!”

Vasquez only gave him a deadpan look and switched songs. Still Joan Baez.

“She is only seven years older than Steven Tyler, Guero.” Vasquez Lips curled into a weak smile, but a smile it was. “I will not be judged by a man who knows Nessun Dorma because Manowar covered it, no?”

His smile grew while in the background Woodstock sang Gracias a la Vida. Faraday gave in before he had even tried to rise to the challenge. Anything to get Vasquez distracted.

 

The last week had been the first time that Faraday refused to leave Vasquez’ side when asked, stubbornly insisting on sleeping in the man’s bed.

He expected the insomnia. He would’ve been surprised had Vasquez not hooked himself up to his PASIV to get any rest five out of ten nights.

Not even the nightmares worried him. Having to go under twice to draw Vasquez out of them had been slightly disconcerting. But not as disconcerting as the dreams themselves.

At least Vasquez’ good projections didn’t touch Faraday, stupid as it was to be so lenient with someone just because he shared the same bed… and sometimes murmured sappy shit when he was sure his Mexican pointman didn’t hear it or knew exactly how to make coffee so said pointman liked it or… settle somewhere for an extended period of time, no matter the absolutely freakish silence out in the ass end of Oklahoma.

In his own dreams, Vasquez’ mind existed along sharply drawn battle lines. Should Faraday ever meet Riley in reality, or ever see Machner again after BND and Interpol were done with the lot of them, or should he ever - _ever -_ meet Garcia, all bets were off. Not for Vasquez. Vasquez own pain seemed annoyingly negligible in his own dreams; battered, bruised and bloody, he still faced it with a shrug and rolling ‘Bring it on’. No, the pain in Vasquez always bore the names of others: Carlos, Alejandra… Faraday.

In hindsight, apologies fell short, when Faraday watched the effect his ‘death’ still had on his lover. But then, apologies definitely fell short of the necessity and reality he had faced against Bogue. And Vasquez knew. That’s why he never asked for one or even a minimal concession.

He just dreamed.

And sometimes he dreamed he was alone.

“They’ll be happy to see you. They know you had to do shit to survive.” Faraday’s gaze dipped to the Colts in Vasquez holsters, his whole outfit more militarized than flashy today, like he tried so hard to be normal.

“They’re adults; they’ll understand. Children don’t work like that, Guero.”

And wasn’t that the most truthful sentence and the biggest admission, Vasquez had uttered in months. He had kept everything close to his chest all through autumn and the endless preparations to make it look like a natural progression that his mother and sister sold the ranch and all the horses and prepared a move to the US with the explanation that Andrea had a job as a veterinarian somewhere on the West Coast. He had stayed an amenable, if silent, companion throughout Christmas and the inevitable visit to Goodnight’s house, the meeting with all the others. Work talk, politics talk, Interpol talk, mission talk. And now, a week later, this.

“She’ll be too surprised to care?” Faraday tried with little success, judging by Vasquez face.

Vasquez’ family had decided not to burden the kid with keeping the secret. As far as she was concerned they moved to America because the ranch became too hard on her abuela with her father and grandfather dead and her aunt didn’t want to lose her chance at something ‘more’. Or whatever.

The explanation was stupid. Having to watch Vasquez sit through Facetime meetings, knowing that his daughter was asleep on the other side and he couldn’t see her, was stupid. Watching him in his dreams, terrorized by the thoughts of others hurt was stupid and right now, right here…?

Faraday lit two cigarettes and handed one to Vasquez. Luckily they both could find common ground with good ol’ Gauloises.

“Last one.” Vasquez’ eyes strafed over the dashboard clock. “No smoking with…”

“...Alejandra in the car. Yo sé, Rafael,” Faraday completed the sentence, earning a surprised look.

He huffed a little smile and reached out again, this time gently curling his hand around the back of Vasquez’ neck, fingers digging into the short cropped hair there.

“I spent hours as a child imagining that my father would come for me. Logic be damned that he gave no fuck I existed. I just wanted him, you know? There’s worse shit than temporary awkwardness. Trust me, sweetheart. I’m an expert.”

Faraday’s head thumped back against the headrest as he watched a smoke ring curl from his mouth. Another ring was destroyed before he had a chance to properly form, inevitably distorted by his grin. “Even Sam conceded that his favorite new FBI property was unavailable for slave work in the near future. You got the time, Vasquez.”

That made Vasquez laugh, no matter the protest in his voice.

“It’s called independent contractor, cábron. Far from property.”

“Pffff, I bet you got FBI tattooed somewhere on your ass!”

“If someone would know, it’s you, Guero. So tell me, is my ass still untouched? And I might have to check yours, to be sure.”

Faraday’s groan drowned out even Joan Baez’ voice in her higher octaves as he thudded his head against the steering wheel.

“A) I made sure your ass is not untouched.” The memory alone made both of them smile.

“B) Look at us, we’re both achieved international criminals. The corporate world trembles before us. Security fears us. Why are we here?”

“Because I want my daughter back and you need someone to keep you out of jail if they catch you cheating at poker, Guero. You also love the challenge to go up against criminals because they are more paranoid and harder to crack.”

Before Faraday could protest Vasquez so blatantly quoting himself back at him, both their coms crackled to life with the sound of a smooth, deep voice.

“Red Harvest checking in. ETA: 10 minutes.”

  


***

 

The early February sun had not yet the strength to build up real heat, a fact for which Vasquez was eminently glad.

The long sleeved shirt and tac vest provided him with needed extra layers, armor in a way that had nothing to do with bullets.

Before him a road stretched through an ochre desert, the picturesque manifestation of loneliness. Black asphalt, rocks and him. Comforting in its isolation. As it began, so it ended.

Except, no longer.

He felt the easy touch of Goody’s scope between his shoulderblades, heard the low murmur of distances recounted through his com. A few steps behind Vasquez, Faraday sat behind the wheel of an armored black government issue SUV looking like he belonged there, gun in hand and his eyes trained on Vasquez in the mirror. Sam and Emma and their faceless minion designated to switch cars and drive the old family Ford out of their lives waited just around the bend. There was no knowing where Billy hid.

Horne had sent two of those famous handwoven blankets to add ‘warmth to that CIA safe house charm’. Not quite, but Vasquez appreciated the thought.

Just as much as he appreciated the concerted effort of both Emma and Sam and all the terrifying resources they pulled together just so one girl could sleep in her own bed, a family had the animals that were the center of their lives. That they felt welcome in a country not their own.

“It’s only fair that at least one of us gets a happy ending.”

A girl.

“And even if you were not an invaluable resource…,” Thanks Sam. “...you are a friend.”

Vasquez closed his eyes as a red car inched around the curve ahead. “My daughter,” he whispered one more time, replacing the words he had whispered so many times before.

‘A girl’ he protected. ‘The child’. ‘The subject.’

He opened them again and whispered once more, “My daughter.” The car stopped several yards before the allocated point, out in the open instead of shielded by the SUV.

Out of the corner of his eye, Vasquez saw Faraday curse more than he heard him and shift into reverse gear, inching the SUV backwards to close the gap.

But even he couldn’t stop the backdoor of the car opening and a pair of feet in blue sneakers hit the asphalt. Couldn’t provide the cover she didn’t gave a damn about as she raced across the pavement, dropping a stuffed toy along the way.

“It’s okay,” Goody’s calm voice caught Vasquez before the panic set in. “We’re alone.”

It’s safe.

Vasquez took the first step forward where she had already crossed three dozen, adding a second as she launched herself into the air and at him, catching spindly arms and legs around his body, because damn risk, damn the world, he’d catch her.

“I KNEW IT!” she jubilated into the desert and Vasquez ears and he couldn’t help but laugh as his knees hit the ground, the impact jarring several recently healed bones, first and foremost his ribs as her elbows hit his chest. Luckily, Sam had insisted on full protective gear, half, Vasquez suspected, for Vasquez’ sake than real security, but the kneepads suddenly came in handier than he had expected.

“I got you. I got you, Ali.”

“I knew it!” Her small hands pawed at his vest, fingers digging into straps as if they were made for her to hold on.

She was too big to be held like this anymore, with her face easily hidden against his neck and his arms comfortably slung around her small body, that perfect fit lost to time. Only, as usual, Alejandra didn’t care. She still smelled of horses and chocolate and that sweet powdery smell that was hers. Soft wisps of hair that tickled his nose and careless fingers that caught in his own and scratched his skin because she was far too wild to just sit still and instead had to grab for his face and lean back and laugh.

“Abuelo told me! But I _knew_ before.” Vasquez had no time to evade the wet smooch that hit his face or the vise like grip of her arms as they slung around his neck again.

“He told you…,” he gasped and reached behind to tug them loose enough to look at her face.

He had explicitly told his father not to in their last call. He had told him a lot, forcing three years of a life not lived into one last conversation with the desperate need of a man who knew he would never again have the chance.

Alejandra smiled. “It was a secret. To protect you. But I knew before that. I always knew.”

She couldn’t have, he knew that, but in the end it didn’t matter.

In the background, Red helped Andrea and Vasquez’ mother out of the car, helping them unload a few bags before Emma’s lackey got behind the wheel.

“Did you tell anybody, Aleja?” The father in him wanted to not ask the question, just bask in the magic of this moment that could never be that perfect again. The fugitive - the point man - had to.

“No!” She shoved at his chest, hand finding the healed bullet wound under his collar bone with blind surety. Vasquez swallowed the hiss - it was just the last remnants of the healing bone after all - and bent his head for a kiss to her cheek.

“OK. Thank you.”

“I would never tell on you! I don’t want you killed, you know?”

He knew. But she couldn’t have thought of all the implications of the situation, the betrayals, the nightmares. Neither did he.

Where his father had known what she dreamed about, hugged her when she woke up crying as she sometimes did, Vasquez had only seen all the outside factors that could kill his family and never what lay within.

 _It’s a father’s privilege to protect his children,_ Juan Alvarez had once said. Somewhere along the way, Vasquez had forgotten that he, too, had been and still was someone’s child and had been protected in whatever way possible.

A last gift of his father’s. Stupid risk.

“Yeah, I know,” Vasquez murmured. “Thank you.”.

The car drove off. Red hoisted two bags over his massive shoulders, Andrea the third and his mother picked the discarded toy off the asphalt.

Vasquez glanced to his left and found the stupidly smiling face of his stupid boyfriend who had backed the van until it completely covered their right and now watched both Vasquez and his little ghost with the kind of expression he’d insist was not dumbfounded love.

Huffing a laugh, Vasquez struggled up, sorting Aleja’s legs out of the way of his guns with the true feat of Twister-like dexterity that only single parents ever perfected.

“Aleja?” he murmured softly to her displeased grunt. “Can I put you down to hug your grandma and aunt?”

“No.”

And that was that.

Rafael Alvarez might have changed. Aleja’s father hadn’t. He was still the same, listless pushover.

“Alright. We’ll just be awkward together. That’s fine.”

Andrea, not ten feet ahead shook her head, as usual, mock-disappointed in his life choices. So, that hadn’t changed either then.

 

***

 

"Hey, bugling." Faraday glanced over to the girl curled under Vasquez’ left arm. Good thing his partner was just as good a shot with his right hand, moving the kid was out of the question. Faraday had cast one look at his boyfriend and tossed the thought. If anybody really cared enough to follow a small family across the border, Red in the back would have to let go of his lady's hand for a second and start killing people.

"Yeah?" Aleja glanced up, her eyes bloodshot, either from tears or... she looked just like her father.

"Did you sleep at all last night?"

She narrowed her eyes - yes, Vasquez 2.0 Jesus wept, why? - and nodded with much more fervor than was honest.

"I can smell lies, young lady."

Now Vasquez narrowed his eyes as well, but Faraday just grinned at her until she shook her head.

"That's all right," Faraday amended. "You can lie down and take a nap with that one later."

She turned her gaze towards her father, then back to Faraday, her eyebrows somewhere near her hairline.

Faraday sure as hell wouldn't tell her about the nightmares. But he sure as hell could set her up to get Vasquez to catch up on some zzzzz.

"He didn't sleep either," he whispered and was rewarded with a soft "Oh..." from Aleja.

"That's ok. I can do that."

And under her hopeful gaze, Vasquez folded like a freshly roasted marshmallow.

Score one.

  


***

 

Emma poked her head into the room and maneuvered the pizza box around the door frame like a peace offering in a war Faraday didn’t know he had been fighting.

On the other hand… the small motel table lay covered in various gun parts in different states of disassembly and cleaning.

Emma cast one look at the bed and the two bodies curled into each other, then at the table and Faraday, and dropped the pizza box on the weapons.

“You should rest, too.”

“Hrmhm,” Faraday murmured and opened the box to come face to face with a hot, cheese-dripping rondell of Italian sausage, pepperoni and pineapple.

“Disgusting,” he commented and peeled the first piece off.

Perfect.

“We still have a four hour drive ahead of us tomorrow, Faraday.”

He chewed around the mouthful of cheese trying to strangle him, grabbing a can of Coke from Emma’s hands before he could answer.

“I’ve driven farther on much less sleep and more alcohol, thank you, Agent Cullen. As you see, the bed is taken.”

Emma frowned at the bed then back at him and her face lit up with understanding.

“She doesn’t know, does she?”

“That me and V are spending as much time in bed together as we spend slaving over America’s security or shooting virtual bad guys? Or that her daddy is unable to sleep unless someone sits watch, and wakes with screaming nightmares because he’s so afraid that someone will hurt her?”

Whether the disgust on her face was because of his crudeness or the fact that he was still trying to swallow the cheese - holy fucking shit, what a gloriously bad idea - Emma schooled it quickly.

“That you are Vasquez’ boyfriend.”

“Partner.”

“Partner…,” Emma amended and shook her head at him, the smallest of smiles tugging at the corners of her mouth.

“...in crime,” he couldn’t help but add, to see her smirk grow. “Except… nothing you know of… not really anymore. We are good guys. Virtual angels.”

Emma’s barely contained amusement broke free in a low snort and chuckle as she shook her head at him.

“I know nothing, Mr. Faraday. Get some rest.”

Faraday fished the next piece of pizza out of the box and saluted her with the can of Coke.

“Thank you, Jon Snow. See you in the morning.”

He managed to chew this one with his mouth mostly closed, a stunning feet of American ingenuity, born by the advent of double cheese pizza, and suddenly found himself in the focus of a pair of dark eyes across from him in the dim light of a middle class motel room.

She had snuggled herself into the curve of Vasquez’ body, safely ensconced in the cradle of his arms, in blissful harmony with themselves and the world for once.

No longer. She looked at him like one of those little creatures that were said to dwell in the heart of the woods, endless black eyes knowing the secrets of the world as they ate unsuspecting stranger’s soul, and lifted her index fingers to her smiling lips. A little ‘shhh,’ and the smile grew around the words her lips formed.

_I know._

Well, she didn’t seem to mind.

Faraday watched her wrap her hand back around her father’s wrist, wriggling deeper into the safe cage he had built and grinned.

That child…

 _Okay?_ he mouthed back, remembering at the last moment to wait until he had spoken to lick the oil off his fingers to her inexplicable childish delight and vigorous nod.

So, that was that then.

He still wouldn’t climb into bed with that bit of familial bliss. Vasquez had waited too long to have to share it now.

That didn’t mean…

Faraday pursed his lips and with great fanfare and excessive precision closed his eyes in her direction.  

Remote controlling children. Test line 1.

Alejandra wrinkled her nose at him but did as commanded and closed her eyes.

Huh.

 

***

 

The true heat of spring had not yet reached Europe, the cobblestone street outside the floor length hotel windows gleaming wet under a grey sky with no bit of sunlight in sight.

Not a bad thing, in Faraday’s opinion. The European habit of viewing ACs as unnecessary luxury was annoying at best, and if he had wanted to work in a sauna, he would’ve become a sauna attendant.

Not someone who tried to find an international white supremacist terror cell operating in hacker circles with a bunch of people who barely understood the basics of computers like Sam and Horne or far too much like their momentarily absent point man.

“It’s all just ones and zeroes I see anymore. Mary, Mother of God help me.” Faraday rubbed his eyes. “I need a break.”

Red across the table snorted from behind his own file, not even bothering to look at Faraday.

And as if on cue, the door to the stairway opened and Vasquez poked his head in, linen shirt and vest but minus the jacket, old silver cufflinks gleaming dully in the indirect light. He looked like a fantasy come to life, one explicitly written for this setting of thick, roughly hewn walls with hundreds of years between them. Except for the scowl.

“Faraday.” Vasquez jerked his head toward their room in a clipped motion. “A word.”

It was Goodnight - of course it was Goodnight - bent deep over a map of a medieval city who said what Faraday could see them all thinking.

“Go, pursue your paramour, Faraday. This work won’t grow legs and walk out on you.”

“Vasquez might after he finally grows himself a brain cell not infatuated with Faraday…” Billy deadpanned next to him, and like the bunch of morons they were, everybody laughed.

“Listen,” Faraday cut in. “Everybody. The next person insulting my man’s intelligence can discuss it with my aim. I don’t need brain for that, right?” He turned, stalked two steps and turned around, looking into a table of faces waiting with fascinated expressions and not one ounce of fear. So much for respecting violence. “And neither will you after I’m done.”

They played this game of dramatics often enough for him to not expect the fear per se, but it would be nice if anybody at least put in a modicum of effort.

“Dayum, son,” Goodnight laughed while Emma whistled her appreciation over her glass of dark red wine. “Go, kiss Vasquez and let the plebeian masses work.”

  
  


“Is she alright?” Faraday asked as soon as the door closed behind them.

Vasquez stood in the middle of the room with his arms loosely crossed, gaze fixed past Faraday to the wall. And that was only very slightly disconcerting.

“She is fine. I just talked to my mother.”

Oh…

“Is Silvia fine?”

She’d looked fine that last time Faraday had seen her three weeks prior as he had stopped at the farm to pick up Vasquez before they met up with Sam and Red in Washington. She had yelled at him for taking bad care of himself, as usual, and badgered him to ‘come home’ after this job so she could.

To her credit, she did the same every time he returned from one of his inevitable episodes of alone time that mostly consisted of illegal poker games in smoky back rooms, too much whiskey and too little sleep.  

“Sí, my mother is fine.” Vasquez’ jaw worked on the words as if they were not really what he wanted to say but what he wanted to say he didn’t have the words for.

Faraday rolled his eyes and grumbled.

“Then what is the problem, V?”

“Parent teacher conference.”

That gave Faraday pause. A lot of things could come out of one of these and, granted, Faraday had no idea what those even were, aside from all the comments he had gotten as a kid because his mother never went to one.

“And…?”

In the beginning Alejandra had had a few starting difficulties, new school, new school system, strange country and though her English was very good - Minecraft and the internet be praised - it still was her second language.

“Her teachers are very happy with her progress. She is a good student, and her grades are constantly getting better.” Vasquez took a deep breath.  “But….”

Ah, here they went…

“They strongly request that she stop teaching the other children how to make napalm…”

Oh…

So, that was what this was about.

Vasquez’ hot glare landed squarely on Faraday, who mustered only a semi-impressed shrug.

“Why is my daughter teaching other children how to mix napalm, Guero?”

“To explain some basic principles of chemistry?”

“Why does my daughter _know_ how to mix napalm?”

Faraday shrugged again. “Because I explained to her some basic principles of chemistry. And it helped,” he added. “She got better.”

Vasquez threw his arms up and cursed.

He turned away to hide the way the skin around his eyes tightened, but there was no way he fooled Faraday.

“She’s turning into a teenager, V. She needs to know how to defend herself,” he countered just to hear the cut-off snort from his lover.

“Blowing things up is not self-defense, Guero.”

Faraday took his boyfriend’s laughter-shaking shoulders and gently turn him around and in his arms, snickering only very little.

“How weirded out were they?”

Against his shoulder, Vasquez shook his head in pure desperation, his silence dissolving with every passing moment.

“So...so much.”

“Awesome! Next up: thermite.”

Vasquez wheezed.

“Guero… no!”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is it.  
> All the secrets and hopefully cleared up. All the questions answered and all the pain patched up :)
> 
> Some people already have had the privilege to hear me cry about how I didn't want it to end for DAYS. 
> 
> Which is a barely veiled attempt to elicit prompts from people.  
> I already have a few.  
> Outtakes that didn't make the story. Slices of life and a request for the kind of crap they can get up to in dreams. 
> 
> If you have a prompt, want to know something, anything, hit me up in the comments or on tumblr. 
> 
> Kat2107.tumblr.com
> 
> ;)


End file.
